Hazardous waste being stored in run-down buildings at Sellafield nuclear plant is posing "intolerable risks to people and the environment", a watchdog has warned.
For more than 50 years, the owners of the Cumbrian nuclear power station have failed to plan how to dispose of radioactive waste, according to a report by the National Audit Office (NAO).
The public spending watchdog said some of the older facilities have "deteriorated so much that their contents pose significant risks to people and the environment".
Operators of the nuclear power station do not know how long it will take to build storage and treatment centres for the hazardous material or how much the final bill is likely to be, the report says.
Sellafield, the UK's largest and most hazardous nuclear site, stores enough high and intermediate level radioactive waste to fill 27 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Sellafield's radioactive waste could fill 27 Olympic swiimming pools The highest risks are posed by the ponds and silos built during the 1950s and 1960s to store fuel for early reprocessing operations and radioactive waste, according to the report.
A long-term plan to clean up the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority-owned site, which is managed by Sellafield Limited, was agreed last year after an earlier one stalled because it was "unrealistic".
Progress in 12 of the 14 major buildings and equipment projects considered "critical" for reducing risk, which range in cost from £21m to £1.3bn, failed to achieve what they were supposed to and had not provided good value for money, the NAO said.
The report found there "is still considerable uncertainty in the schedules and costs" of the projects.
Margaret Hodge, who chairs the Commons Public Accounts Committee, said: "Projects of this length and ambition are ripe for dithering and delay.
"I am dismayed to discover the clean-up of Sellafield is no different. The authority's revised plan sees critical milestones shunted back by up to seven years.
"After only 10 months of operating under the new plan, performance in 12 out of 14 major projects has been dire.
"Between May 2011 and March 2012, the seven major projects in construction accumulated delays of between two and 19 months.
"My concern is that unless the authority holds Sellafield Limited to a clear and rigorously benchmarked plan, timetables will continue to slip and costs spiral.
"It is totally unacceptable to allow today's poor management to shift the burden and expense of Sellafield to future generations of taxpayers and their families."
Around 240 of Sellafield's 1,400 buildings are nuclear facilities and so far 55 buildings on the site have been decommissioned.
Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said: "Owing to historic neglect, the authority faces a considerable challenge in taking forward decommissioning at Sellafield.
"It is good that the authority now has a more robust lifetime plan in place but it cannot say with certainty how long it will take to deal with hazardous radioactive waste at Sellafield or how much it will cost.
"Securing future value for money will depend on the authority's ability to act as an intelligent client, to benchmark proposed levels of performance and to provide better contractual incentives for making faster progress towards risk and hazard reduction."
In a statement on its website, Sellafield Ltd welcomed the report and said it was making improvements and "progress"..
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