NDA launches its new Social Impact and Communities Strategy

5 Apr 2024 12:42 PM

Today the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has published its new Social Impact and Communities Strategy.

The strategy sets out the NDA’s obligations and strategic approach to supporting its communities and to maximising the social impact of its work, and you can read it here: NDA Social Impact and Communities Strategy April 2024 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The Energy Act (2004) provides the NDA with a legal duty to have regard for the impact of its activities on communities living near its sites, as well as the wider responsibilities all public bodies have under the Social Value Act (2012).

The NDA’s decommissioning work supports thousands of jobs in some of the most remote parts of the UK. Across its 17 sites, it employs almost 17,000 people, as well as supporting tens of thousands of jobs indirectly with a supply chain of almost 5,000 companies and an economic footprint in approximately 75% of all parliamentary constituencies.

In addition to it’s direct economic impact, the NDA’s socio-economic funding is designed to help local communities to grow and diversify with the ambition of leaving a positive legacy once decommissioning work is completed.

Over the last four years, the NDA has invested almost £50 million of direct socio-economic funding across the UK. By doing so it has leveraged millions of pounds of further investment from partners, to support significant projects that enable permanent and sustainable change in site communities.

Notable examples of recent investments across the NDA estate include:

• Morlais Tidal Energy Project - ~£1m group investment leveraging over £48m of Welsh Government and WEFO funding into a major, innovative green energy project on Anglesey.
• Spaceport Sutherland - £3m NDA investment into a project to launch small satellites which has secured circa. £30m of additional investment into the area.
• Western Excellence in Learning and Leadership (WELL) – £3.998m SL investment into a transformational project aiming to improve educational outcomes for young people, particularly those facing disadvantage.
• Industrial Solutions hub (ISH) - NDA investment of £7m which has helped to leverage £22.5m of Government investment in the Cleator Moor Town Deal and a further £20m from the Levelling-Up Fund
• South Oxfordshire Food and Education Alliance (SOFEA) – £608k of NDA and NRS support to an education and training charity enabling disadvantaged young people to (re)engage with learning, skills development, and work.
• Romney Marsh Business Hub – £700k NDA investment into a £2.175m project to provide a new business hub with ambition to support 500 new jobs over 10 years.
• Beyond Chapelcross - £500k of NDA funding to develop a proposition for the reuse of NDA land at Chapelcross which has helped to secure an offer of £21m from Borderlands Inclusive Growth Deal.

This Social Impact and Communities strategy is aligned with the NDA’s wider strategy and the NDA group sustainability strategy. This strategy takes account of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and UK socio-economic priorities including those set out by the Just Transition Commission (Scotland) and in the Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. It informs the individual social impact strategies and plans of the NDA’s applicable operating companies and - reflecting the importance the NDA places on its communities - this strategy has been developed in consultation with representatives from local communities.

The NDA believes that decommissioning activities should benefit local communities and that it must provide a positive legacy once its work is completed. The organisation is immensely proud of its work with local communities to date and has ambitions to make further progress – this strategy provides the framework for how it will do this.