The UK’s flagship nuclear cleanup site, Sellafield, has wasted £127 million amid delays and replanning after scrapping its Replacement Analytical Project (RAP), a Parliamentary report reveals.

Faced with a looming 2028 deadline to replace its 70-year-old analytical lab, Sellafield Limited — responsible for decommissioning the site — abandoned RAP due to expected delays stretching the project to at least 2034 and soaring costs ballooning from £486 million to £1.5 billion.

The House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee (PAC) sharply criticized the project, stating: “Sellafield Ltd’s performance in delivering major projects… has historically been very poor, with large cost increases and delays occurring all too frequently.” The report further called RAP’s management “very poor indeed.”

Originally, the RAP was to replace a deteriorating lab incapable of meeting modern standards or analyzing plutonium safely for repackaging. Now, instead of RAP, Sellafield plans to convert a different building to support plutonium treatment until 2040 and refurbish the existing lab, including replacing its roof.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority estimates this alternative will cost between £420 million and £840 million, considerably less than RAP’s projected £1.5 billion, though the £127 million spent on RAP is deemed lost.

Despite these setbacks, cleanup at Sellafield is expected to continue until 2125, with costs soaring to an estimated £136 billion — up nearly 19% since 2019.

As the PAC concluded, “There are signs of improvement – however, given Sellafield’s track record, we are yet to be fully convinced that this is not another false dawn.”