The NDA Draft Business Plan sets out key activities and expected progress for all 17 of the NDA’s nuclear sites over the next 3 years. We want to hear from anyone who has a comment on any aspect of this document.
The Draft Business Plan reflects the Strategy published in 2021 and sets out key activities and the progress the NDA expects across all its sites during the next 3 years, in line with the funding allocated by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy
The NDA seeks to maintain progress and maximise value for money by focusing on the highest hazards, whilst ensuring that safe, secure and environmentally responsible site operations are maintained across its estate.
Strategic outcomes that are due to be met in the three-year period, demonstrating major progress against our mission include:
- all exotic fuel defueled
- the end of plutonium and uranium separation
- all uranium consolidated
- all overseas high level waste exported
This year has seen major milestones completed including the closure of the Magnox Reprocessing Plant at Sellafield after 58 years and waste retrievals beginning from the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo – one of the NDA’s highest hazard facilities.
There have also been benefits of a simplified, stronger NDA group, including the development of group-wide strategies on topics such as sustainability. Pioneering and innovative steps are being taken across the NDA estate to maintain the commitment to become carbon net zero by 2050, and 2045 in Scotland.
There has been a focus in investing in communities living near NDA sites. The NDA Group Social Impact programme invests approximately £15 million per year in building a lasting social and economic legacy for future generations, leveraging millions more in the process.
The Business Plan also includes updated assumptions for when Magnox site end states will be reached, defined as the physical condition to which the site will be taken at the end of the decommissioning process, taking into account factors such as safety, community requirements and environmental sensitivities.
Given most end states will not be achieved for decades, the new assumptions are a best estimate of the earliest end date, based on a number of dependences, assumptions, risks and exclusions and are subject to site specific strategy development and approval.
The focus is on developing credible options to set direction which will be continually reviewed and optimised using the latest learning from across the estate, considering new technologies and innovative approaches and taking into account other influencing factors such as government policy and funding.
The consultation will run for eight weeks, from 12 December 2022 to 6 February 2023 in accordance with the criteria set out in the Cabinet Office’s Consultation principles guidelines. The NDA want to hear from anyone who has a comment on any aspect of this document.
More information on the consultation can be found HERE.
