People in North West England are benefitting from £154 million in government funding to develop specialised capabilities to enable the disposal of the UK’s civil plutonium inventory.

100 jobs will be supported, the majority in Cumbria, after the government decided to immobilise the material, a product of nuclear fuel reprocessing, which will mitigate the long-term security risks.

This major investment, spanning five years, will allow the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority group, working with supply-chain partners, to design, install and operate specialist laboratory facilities at Sellafield, where experts will test and prove the technology that will be used to immobilise the plutonium, locking it away in a stable form.

Work will focus on early research and development for the programme o

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