Antinuclear

UK Government confirms dismantling of Swiftsure is on track, but with spiralling costs

it will take several decades to get rid of the remaining 26 boats.

26th September,
https://www.dunfermlinepress.com/news/26582886.uk-government-confirms-dismantling-swiftsure-track/

WORKERS at Rosyth Dockyard are on target to dismantle and recycle an old nuclear submarine by the end of the year.

The world first ‘demonstrator’ project to cut up HMS Swiftsure and remove her radioactive waste remains on schedule, the UK Government has confirmed.

However the ‘whole life cost’ of the Submarine Dismantling Project (SDP), there will be 27 decommissioned boats to get rid of, has spiralled by another £89m to almost £500m.

At the beginning of 2025 it was just under £300m – and this does not include the money it will take to dispose of the remaining 26.

Responding to a series of questions in parliament, Luke Pollard, minister of state at the MoD, said: “Progress continues to be made, and the department remains committed to dismantling Swiftsure by the end of 2026 safely, effectively and in accordance with regulatory requirements.

“The increase in the project’s whole life cost is primarily due to the maturation of infrastructure (alongside other costs), while the end date extended to October 2028 represents the formal closure of the project and is separate from the milestone to complete the recycling of Swiftsure by 2026.”

The SDP is a world-first engineering programme designed to safely defuel, strip and recycle 27 decommissioned Royal Navy nuclear submarines.

The specialist team at Rosyth is leading the way as no other country has attempted to remove the reactor pressure vessels, the most radioactive part of the vessels.

Swiftsure is serving as the ‘demonstrator’ boat to establish a repeatable, standardised process for the rest of the fleet.

The first of her class, she was a nuclear-powered attack submarine whose primary role was intelligence gathering, anti-submarine and anti-ship warfare.

Swiftsure entered service in 1973 and was decommissioned in 1992.

Once the methodology is perfected, it’s expected that each sub will take 12 to 18 months to fully process.

The MoD expects that it will take several decades to get rid of the remaining 26 boats.

Dunfermline and Dollar MP Graeme Downie wants that work to be carried out here, he said that establishing the dockyard as a centre of excellence for dismantling old subs would guaranteeing decades of skilled, well paid jobs.

However, anti-nuclear campaigner and Rosyth councillor, Brian Goodall, has opposed this move and wants the “environmental time bombs” taken away from the town as soon as possible.

Seven subs have been laid up at the dockyard for decades, the last one arriving in 1996.

As well as HMS Swiftsure, there is HMS Churchill, HMS Resolution, HMS Repulse, HMS Revenge and HMS Renown.

HMS Dreadnought has been there for so long – since 1980 – that much of her low-level radiation has “disappeared naturally”.

In November 2022 local councillors were told of a UK Government pledge to “de-nuclearise Rosyth” by 2035.

While it has committed to dismantling all 27 subs, it will learn lessons from cutting up Swiftsure before finalising the plans for the remaining 26 vessels.

It’s thought that, as the other six vessels at Rosyth have already been defuelled and the skilled workforce and infrastructure is already at the yard, these boats will be next in line.

Another 15 subs are at Devonport – just four have had their fuel removed – and five more are due to come out of service.

Approved in 2013, the SDP aims to recover, reuse, or conventionally recycle approximately 90 per cent of each submarine’s total weight.

The three stages involve removing low-level radioactive waste; removing the reactor pressure vessel, which is classed as intermediate level waste; and, once all radioactive material has gone, recycling.

More than 200 people are working on the project at Rosyth and, by late 2024, more than £200m had been spent on it.

The high-quality steel that’s recovered is going into building the next generation of nuclear subs.

Low level waste that’s removed from the subs is processed and sent to a repository in West Cumbria.

The reactor pressure vessels are classed as intermediate level waste (ILW) and will be sent to Capenhurst in Cheshire for interim storage, above ground and in secure containers.

In the long term, the policy is to bury all ILW waste from the subs in a permanent, deep underground geological disposal facility.

The proposed site is not yet known and the UK Government estimates it will not be operational until sometime after 2040.

September 28, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized