SDO21651 - Decommissioning the Winfrith Technology Centre - Environmental Restoration with a Purpose

‘The nuclear industry needs to demonstrate that it can remediate major nuclear sites when no longer required and restore them for continued use by the local communities. The nuclear facilities at the Winfrith site, owned by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, are now all shut down. A strategy has been developed to remediate the site and create a new science based business park creating high quality jobs within the local community. The essential elements of this are: • Decontamination and conversion of buildings for re-use. • Removal of redundant facilities and remediation of the land for further development. • Removal of remediated areas of the site from regulatory control (delicensing). • Sale of land no longer required in a manner consistent with its future environmental management needs. • The retention of those facilities that cannot be decommissioned in a short timescale, in a safe state. Significant progress in implementing this strategy has been made. The majority of the major site facilities have either been decommissioned to a suitable state, or have contracts in place for decommissioning to start. Redundant facilities have been converted for occupancy by new tenants. Already some 1200 paying tenants are on site, the majority working outside of the nuclear industry. It is planned that the majority of the site will move from a Government owned nuclear research and development centre, to a privately owned business park by 2008 to 2010. This project demonstrates that the UKAEA is able to complete its missions of restoring the environment, to the benefit of the public.’