Socio Economic Plan
The site closure programme at Dounreay is currently worth an estimated £80 million a year to the economy of Caithness and north Sutherland.
This represents more than 10% of the gross domestic product of the north Highlands of Caithness, Sutherland and Ross-shire. Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd (DSRL) employs just under 1,000 people on the site closure programme, with a similar number employed in the supply chain.
By 2025, when the fast reactor experiment has been cleared away, the number of people needed to look after what remains of the site will be in the order of tens.
DSRL and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) recognise they have a duty to manage this decline in economic activity in a way that is sensitive to the local economy. DSRL does this in two ways:
- By leading initiatives on-site to help the workforce transition to alternate economic activity, such as career planning and business spin-out.
- By working with the NDA to support Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Caithness Regeneration Partnership, companies and agencies off-site to diversify the economic base of the area.
Our objective is to leave in place a legacy of economic activity that can prosper beyond site closure.
Every year, DSRL produces a socio-economic plan for the NDA, setting out the scope of work we intend to undertake to achieve this.
Click here to read the DSRL socio-economic development plan for 2008/09.
In its first three years of operation, the NDA has made more than £10 million available to support the regeneration of the local economy. Click here to read the socio-economic strategy of the NDA.
