New site closure plan for Dounreay
Dounreay’s site closure plan now includes significant additional work as a result of national decisions on fuel and security.
A revised programme showing how the additional work will be factored into the baseline has been submitted to the NDA.
Representatives of the local community were briefed on the changes last night at a meeting of the site stakeholder group.
The earlier programme for the closure of Dounreay was announced in 2012 when the NDA awarded a new contract to Cavendish Dounreay Partnership to complete the decommissioning of the site.
This contract specified that the inventory of fuel inherited by the NDA at Dounreay would remain in long-term storage at the site.
Since then, the UK Government decided to consolidate its fuel inventory at Sellafield, requiring Dounreay to draw up plans to repackage the fuel in readiness for its transportation to the Cumbria site.
These changes, along with additional security requirements drawn up since the award of the contract, have now been factored into the site closure programme.
Stakeholders heard last night that this will maintain current levels of employment at the site and spend on the supply chain for five years longer than previously forecast.
DSRL Managing Director Mark Rouse said:
Working with the NDA, we have jointly developed an integrated programme to satisfy this national priority.
In order to stay within our funding limit, we need to displace other work to accommodate this and that means the overall programme will take longer to complete.
It’s a challenging programme to deliver, but I’m confident we have the skills here to deliver the best site closure programme ever carried out in Europe.
Pending adoption of the new site closure plan, NDA made available savings from its portfolio management process across its estate to enable Dounreay to prepare for the transfer without impacting on its existing decommissioning.
The revised programme sees enabling works for the clean-up of the shaft and silo begin next year. There will be no change in the programme for the decommissioning of Dounreay Fast Reactor, while completion of the Prototype Fast Reactor decommissioning will go back by two years. Work in the FCA will also continue.