The UK’s Environment Agency has written to the state-owned Low-Level Waste Repository (LLWR) in Cumbria in northern England warning about the safe securing of nuclear waste stored there.

The agency said that the facility, near the town of Drigg, had failed to properly cap legacy waste at the facility and so had potentially breached the terms of its environmental permit, according to the BBC on 23 April, which had obtained the update as a result of a Freedom of Information Act (FIA) request.

Nuclear Waste Services (NWS), the state-owned company that operates the LLWR, told the BBC that the delay in capping the facility posed no danger to the public and surrounding areas and that the company was taking the time to complete the capping process safely.