Dounreay

Dounreay (; Scottish Gaelic: Dùnrath) is a small settlement and the site of two large nuclear establishments on the north coast of Caithness in the Highland area of Scotland. It is on the A836 road nine miles (fourteen kilometres) west of Thurso. The nuclear establishments were created in the 1950s. They were the Nuclear Power Development Establishment (NPDE), now known as NRS Dounreay, for the development of civil fast breeder reactors, and the Vulcan Naval Reactor Test Establishment (NRTE), a military submarine reactor testing facility. Both have ended operations and are being decommissioned. The two establishments have been a major element in the economy of Thurso and Caithness, but this will decrease with the progress of decommissioning. NRS Dounreay will enter an interim care and surveillance state by 2036, and become a brownfield site by 2336. An announcement in July 2020 that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) will be taking over direct management of the site from the site licence company Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL) in 2021 has alleviated fears of 560 job losses. The NRTE is to be decommissioned under a ten-year contract starting in 2023, ending in the creation of a brownfield site, which would be transferred to the NDA.