£315m nuclear bidding bonanza at Dounreay

Bidding for £315m of major nuclear decommissioning contracts at Dounreay in Scotland, will begin next March.

Two contracts are up for grabs, following news that both had received planning permission last week. These are the £100m intermediate level waste treatment plant and store and the £215m low level waste disposal facility.

Both schemes will be out to tender in March 2010, with the low level facility expected to be let by summer 2010 and the intermediate waste facility let by autumn 2010.

The two facilities will look after low and intermediate-level radioactive waste as it is recovered during Dounreay’s decommissioning programme, which runs to 2025.

Tony Trayner, head of construction at DSRL, said: “ An essential element of any decommissioning project is being able to deal with the radioactive waste that it generates and these new facilities will give us that capacity through to the end of our programme.”