It follows the end of a four-month impasse during which they were banned from taking their specialist tracked vehicles on to the beauty spot.

Up until then, more than 90 fragments of spent reactor fuel reprocessed at the plant had been detected and removed from the four-mile stretch of coastline.

The ban was the latest imposed by landowner Geoffrey Minter, who is unhappy with the UK Atomic Energy Authority's efforts to deal with the contamination.

Mr Minter yesterday confirmed that he had reinstated his consent for the Groundhog detection vehicles to go back on the beach from midnight on August 5. The move stemmed from a productive approach to the energy minister Malcolm Wicks.

Mr Minter said "It was as a result of a direct communication from the new minister of energy which has produced positive dialogue on the long proposed inter-owner Sandside Particles Management Plan. Vehicular surveillance therefore recommenced at Sandside on August 8."

The end to the latest stand-off was welcomed yesterday by the UKAEA's Dounreay site director, Simon Middlemas.

He said: "The monitoring team were back at Sandside on Wednesday. We're happy to be allowed back as it is in everyone's interest that the beach is monitored on a regular basis."

Historic leaks from Dounreay which have ended up at Sandside resulted in the UKAEA being fined £100,000 at Wick Sheriff Court at the start of February.

Since the scans started at Sandside in 1984, 95 fuel particles and an unidentified object have been recovered.

Mr Minter, whose family firm own the 10,000-acre Sandside Estate, has withdrawn access on a number of occasions in recent years.

The UKAEA, meanwhile, consulting on a short-list of options it has devised for the long-term management of the off-site pollution.

As well as Sandside, hundreds of particles have been recovered from the enclosed Dounreay foreshore and the adjoining seabed. Single particles have also been found at Dunnet and Murkle beaches.

iain-grant@ukf.net

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