Corporate report: Nuclear Decommissioning Authority: Annual Report and Accounts 2016 to 2017

NDA’s total spend in 2016/17 was £3.2 billion – with over £1 billion in revenue being generated through commercial activity.

David Peattie, NDA Chief Executive Officer, said:

This has been one of the NDA’s most challenging years, but also one in which significant progress was made in cleaning up the UK’s 17 oldest nuclear sites.

Despite £100 million in legal and settlement costs disappointingly arising from the Magnox litigation, the NDA has stayed within its allocated budget of £3.3 billion.

The NDA’s decision to make Sellafield Ltd an NDA subsidiary is proving to be better value for the UK taxpayer, with over £200 million in savings made in 2016/17.

Huge strides have been made in decommissioning across the UK. At Europe’s largest and most complicated nuclear site, Sellafield, contaminated waste is being taken out of some of the oldest facilities and treated, packaged and safely stored. Meanwhile, one of the Magnox sites, Bradwell in Essex, is close to becoming the first nuclear site in the UK to complete all its near-term decommissioning and enter into a ‘Care and Maintenance’ phase.

The report, which is the first since David Peattie became CEO in March 2017, also marked out a number of areas for concern – including aspects of safety performance which need to improve to meet the high standards of performance the NDA expects.

While progress on clean-up and decommissioning has been positive, the report, David Peattie’s first as CEO, also marked out the NDA’s concern over a small number of safety performance aspects. The report note that this area needed to improve in order to meet the high standards of performance the NDA expects.