THE cost of storing and maintaining seven of Britain’s 19 laid-up nuclear submarines at Rosyth was more than £13 million in the past five years.

They have been stored at the Fife yard since 1980 and at Devenport since 1994. The remaining dozen vessels stored in Plymouth have cost more than £3 million in the same period.

All the hulks still have their radioactive reactors and some, in Devonport, are still fuelled.

The combined costs are for preventing any nuclear materials on board the submarines getting into the environment.

Rosyth stored the oldest vessel, HMS Dreadnought, which was decommissioned in 1980.

The Ministry of Defence will have to dismantle the stored submarines and a further eight that are due to leave service by the mid 2030s.

As yet no site has been agreed to take the radioactive reactors.

Dunfermline and West Fife SNP MP Douglas Chapman said laid-up subs at Rosyth had been a “running sore locally for many years” and he was keen to see the MoD make “swift progress” with their plans to dismantle them and remove any residual radioactive waste.

He said: “There are huge costs to the tax-payer in keeping these subs afloat and in storage, but to date, and even with those huge cost pressures, the MoD have been reluctant to identify a suitable site where residual nuclear waste could be stored.

“The cast-iron guarantee from the MoD is that no dismantling can begin until a safe, long-term solution can be found to the storage of radioactive waste. There are also issues around the safe transportation of any radioactive waste between Rosyth and the site for long term storage.

“The workforce at Rosyth have built up a level of expertise in managing the seven submarine hulks and they will be at the vanguard of the dismantling process. The deal must be that once the seven subs have been safely and successfully dismantled, then they will not be replaced by other ageing subs, which have come to the end of their natural life.

“Once the seven are gone, they’ve gone.”

Chapman added: “Our plea is that the MoD get on with ensuring that the dismantling process is carried out to the very highest safety standards and it is done without further delay to allow Rosyth to be radioactive waste free at the earliest possible point.”

In consultation documents four years ago the MoD said the cost to the taxpayer of maintaining the vessels safely was “rising significantly as they age and as more submarines leave service”.

However, it added that they could not be dismantled until a site was found to temporarily store their reactors.

A public consultation was held in February and a decision on a site is expected later this year.

However, the MoD said a “test” dismantling of one submarine at Rosyth was due to start next January. Jane Tallents, a member of the anti-nuclear group Trident Ploughshares and an adviser on the MoD’s submarine dismantling project, said: “The MoD dragged its feet after the first submarine was laid up, but 12 years ago they decided to do something.

“It is a complicated project and there have been points where they have stalled and gone slowly but they have kept moving with it.”

John Large, a nuclear engineering consultant, blamed a “lack of decision and decisive management of the decommissioning and dismantling” of the submarines for the delays to the process. He added: “It also exposes the public, and the naval base workforce, to continuing radiological risk arising from untoward accident or incident.”

The MoD said all the stored submarines underwent “regular maintenance to keep them in a safe condition”.

A spokesperson continued: “As a responsible nuclear operator the MoD takes its duty to manage the disposal of submarines very seriously. All activity is undertaken in a safe, cost-effective and environmentally sound manner.”