Dounreay contractors told to plan for future

Spending on decommissioning at Dounreay is likely to decline in the next decade.

COMPANIES in the Dounreay decommissioning supply chain are being urged to think now about future prospects for staff when the nuclear industry has left Caithness.

Simon Middlemas, managing director of Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd, said every sub-contractor had a responsibility to help employees at the site make the transition when it shuts down.

He was speaking at the Technology and Innovation Exhibition which is the country’s biggest one-day event of the decommissioning supply sector.

Spending on the shutdown programme has peaked at £150 million a year and is expected to begin declining in the next decade or so as more of the redundant plant is made safe.

About two-thirds of the budget, £100 million, goes to sub-contractors which employ upwards of 1000 people on contracts at or near the nuclear site.

Mr Middlemas said the future of staff involved in the decommissioning needed to be accounted for.

"We cannot decommission this site without thinking about what’s going to happen to staff which live in this area and operate on site. We’ve got to think about their future," he said.

Read more in tomorrow’s Caithness Courier.