BRITAIN’S only depleted uranium shell factory suffered four fires in 18 months, it emerged yesterday as Gulf War and Balkan veterans continued to raise the alarm over health risks from the radioactive weapons.

The specialist metals factory at Featherstone in Staffordshire, which is run by Royal Ordnance and owned by BAE Systems, produces depleted uranium rounds for British Army Challenger tanks.

The last fire at the Featherstone site was in February 1999, after which a report by the National Radiological Protection Board — an independent government safety watchdog — concluded that there was no radioactive contamination in the area. The fire brigade which fought the blaze, however, and prison officers at Featherstone jail have raised fears of health problems arising from the incident.

A spokesman for Royal Ordnance, which has an exclusive contract with the MoD to make depleted uranium shells, acknowledged yesterday that there were three other fires in the previous 18 months, but denied there was a radiation escape. Shane Rixom, representative of the Prison Officers’ Association at Featherstone prison, told the governor there had been four cancer cases among the 160 staff over the past four years.

An official US report in 1998 also warned of risks from fire at a depleted uranium facility.