Other Public Services News
Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL) has awarded two contracts worth a combined GBP11.2 million (USD15.9 million) to USA-based engineering group Jacobs for decommissioning work at the Dounreay site in Scotland. Under the contracts, Jacobs will upgrade the ventilation system at the Prototype Fast Reactor (PFR) and develop the decommissioning strategy for the fast reactor fuel reprocessing plant in the Fuel Cycle Area.
Pentland Housing Association tenants are to be formally consulted on a proposed transfer to Cairn Housing Association, which will bring new investment to homes and a locked-in affordable rent guarantee, from a new combined Cairn and Pentland team in Caithness. Detailed information leaflets are being posted out and members of staff from Pentland and Cairn are aiming to personally visit every household to try and speak to residents and answer any questions they might have.
The shaft and silo project ‘advanced transition' work is getting underway at Dounreay. Radioactive waste was historically consigned to the 65 metre deep shaft and the silo, an underground waste storage vault, over several decades starting in the late 1950s.
Thousands of hours contributed to national programme. Health Secretary Humza Yousaf has thanked volunteers who have now contributed more than 25,000 hours to help deliver the national vaccination programme.
Airline suit work has restarted at Dounreay after more than a year's delay caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Wearing an airline suit is cumbersome and the wearer needs to be dressed and undressed by a dedicated team of helpers who then provide support throughout the task.
CAITHNESS AND NORTH SUTHERLAND FUND DIRECTOR VACANCY (unremunerated) Deadline for applications: Monday 14th of June. The Caithness & North Sutherland Fund is a community fund established by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd to distribute a £4M funding package to community projects that will increase the attractiveness of Caithness & North Sutherland as a place to live, work and invest.
Twice as many low income families (under £16,000 p.a.) are not optimistic about life after lockdown compared with those earning more (over £30,000 p.a.) 57% parents are concerned about their own wellbeing or mental health in the year ahead. 65 % of parents are particularly worried about their children's social development.
Ground-breaking research published in Nature Communications shows that traces of plutonium in the environment can be identified as being from global or local sources. Using soil samples taken from Dounreay, an area near to the site and 2 areas at a distance from the site, the research showed that it was possible to identify whether minute traces of plutonium in the soil came from plutonium ‘bred' in a reactor or from global fallout.
Statement issue18 March 2021 by NDA, Dounreay and Sellafield. In 2013 we concluded the development of our strategy to remove unirradiated nuclear material from Dounreay and consolidate it at Sellafield.
Dounreay has awarded an important waste clean-up contract to Jacobs as the site plans for the future of its deepest historic radioactive waste store. Jacobs and its supporting partners have been awarded a 6-year contract to provide a design management team to produce a fully integrated design for the shaft and silo project.
The CNSFund has committed over £79k to community groups in Caithness & North Sutherland in its recent grant rounds. Funded by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, a wide range of community-led projects throughout the Dounreay travel to work area are to benefit from the grant support.
14 successful companies have been awarded contracts to come up with innovative approaches to remotely sort and segregate radioactive waste. The ‘Sort and Seg' innovation competition, worth £3.9 million in total, was launched in July 2020.
David Peattie, Chief Executive Officer of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, has announced the appointment of Lawrie Haynes as Chair Designate of Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd. (DSRL).
Cllr Matthew Reiss, Highland Council's Strategic Lead for Police and Fire has welcomed Police Scotland's announcement that it has created fifteen new posts to further enhance the development of call handling services, based in Inverness. He said: "We were delighted in October last year to welcome 25 new jobs in Inverness with the creation of a specialist call handling service team and these fifteen additional new posts based in the Highlands are great news.
Dounreay features in a new leaflet from the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency showing recent research, development and innovation. See the leaflet link at the bottom of this page to read about some of the other investments by the NDA.
UK-Japan relationship in nuclear science boosted by robotics and automation. Britain and Japan have signed a research and technology deployment collaboration to help automate nuclear decommissioning and aspects of fusion energy production.
Issued by David Peattie, Group CEO and Accounting Officer, NDA. I am pleased to be able to share with you some significant developments within the NDA around our transport and waste businesses, further underlining our One NDA approach to working more collaboratively and efficiently to clean up the UK's earliest civil nuclear sites.
The Decommissioning Services Framework (DDF) Alliance, led by Cavendish Nuclear and supported by KDC Contractors (Veolia) and BAM Nuttall (BAM), has been successfully awarded a contract for the design of a new waste repackaging facility at the Dounreay nuclear site. The programme of work is expected to run until early 2022 and forms part of Dounreay Site Restoration Limited's (DSRL's) Decommissioning Services Framework.
Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL) has announced the appointment of Mark Rouse as its Managing Director. Mark took up the position of Managing Director in March 2020 but will now move from the current parent body organisation to Dounreay Site Restoration Limited to continue leading the business when it becomes an NDA subsidiary on 1 April 2021.
Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf has responded to the Lord President's decision to reduce the number of criminal trials as part of efforts to reduce the transmission of coronavirus (COVID-19). The Justice Secretary said:"I welcome the Lord President's decisive action, which balances the interests of justice with the very serious public health challenges presented by the new variant of the coronavirus (COVID-19).