DECOMMISSIONING & DISPOSAL | NDA STRATEGY decommissioning Delivering on The UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) recently refreshed its


decommissioning strategy, setting out how its mission will be delivered with greater integration and a continued focus on hazard reduction.


By Clive Nixon, NDA Group Chief Nuclear Strategy Officer


Radioactive waste is now regularly being retrieved from all four of Sellafield’s oldest storage ponds and silos. Source: NDA


DECOMMISSIONING THE UK’S EARLIEST nuclear sites is one of the most complex environmental and engineering programmes in the world. It’s a mission measured not in years, but in generations – requiring technical excellence, disciplined decision-making, and long-term safe stewardship of assets and knowledge. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is the


organisation trusted by the UK Government with cleaning up these legacy sites that were once at the heart of national defence and energy generation, remediating them for their next use, and delivering a safer future for generations to come. Both varied and challenging in scope, this work includes cleaning up decades-old facilities, transporting, treating and storing radioactive materials, decommissioning and dismantling hundreds of buildings, and delivering multiple major infrastructure projects. All while creating social and environmental benefits through jobs, knowledge, skills, technology and social investment. Earlier in 2026 the NDA published a refreshed strategy, setting out how the mission will be delivered, with greater integration across the NDA group, utilising a proportionate approach to risk, sharper prioritisation, and a continued focus on hazard reduction imperatives.


64 | April 2026 | www.neimagazine.com


This strategy is not a reset, it’s a progression. It builds on the direction set in previous strategies while reflecting how the operating environment, delivery model and mission scope have evolved. Since the last strategy was published in 2021, the NDA


Group has completed major reprocessing operations, strengthened its integrated waste management approach, supported the development of updated national radioactive waste and plutonium disposition policies, and embedded the group operating model. The group comprises the NDA, Nuclear Restoration Services, Sellafield Ltd, Nuclear Waste Services and Nuclear Transport Solutions. The group structure – bringing together site restoration, waste services, transport and major programme delivery – is now enabling closer collaboration, shared capability, efficiencies, and more consistent approaches to common challenges. In the near term, the NDA Group is set to expand as it


takes on additional responsibilities on behalf of the UK Government, including managing nuclear liabilities on behalf of the Ministry of Defence, and decommissioning the Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR) reactor fleet with the first station transferring from EDF in April and the second to follow later this year.


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