ABOUT 500 jobs will be created by three major building projects costing hundreds of millions of pounds as part of the clean-up of the Dounreay nuclear plant.
Work is due to start next year and last seven years in one of the biggest and most important phases of demolishing the existing complex and packaging radioactive waste for long-term storage or disposal.
The three projects will cost about £400 mill
ion during construction and about £550 million over their lifetime.
Decommissioning the complex is due to end in 25 years, at a total cost of £2.9 billion.
A conference has been organised next month to outline the projects to contractors who could bid for the work.
The projects are being funded by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and managed by Dounreay Site Restoration.
A treatment plant and store is needed for liquid and solid intermediate-level waste, including that from fuel reprocessing. Work is due to start next year and take three years to complete.
Construction of a disposal facility for low-level solid radioactive waste will start in 2011 and
the scheme for retrieval and processing of intermediate-level waste from the shaft and silo is due to begin in 2013. .
Brad Smith, the head of the decommissioning at Dounreay Site Restoration, said: "These facilities are the linchpin of our decommissioning programme and essential to meeting our promise to complete the clean-up of the site by 2025."
The facilities will allow the site to condition all of its intermediate-level waste.
