Graham Construction has handed over the first two underground vaults for storing low activity waste on the site of the former Dounreay nuclear power station.

Cavendish Dounreay Partnership has taken possession of the two new facilities where much of the radioactive waste generated during the clean-out and dismantling of the nuclear reactors, reprocessing plant and other radioactive facilities at the site will be kept.

The first of up to six vaults needed to take all the waste have been handed over by Graham to Cavendish Dounreay Partnership and its site licence company DSRL.

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The decommissioning of Dounreay is Europe's largest nuclear site closure project.

As part of the project, main contractor Graham Construction excavated a total of 243,000 cubic metres of rock during construction of the two vaults. Each vault is equivalent in volume to between 370 and 450 double-decker buses, with the floor 11 metres underground. A total of 7,600m3 of concrete, 1,330 tonnes of reinforcement and 260 tonnes of structural steel were used during their construction.

Leo Martin, executive director at Graham said: "The restoration of Dounreay is a massive undertaking and it is tremendously gratifying to play our part in this initiative.

"The challenges involved in designing and constructing the vaults have been considerable, and we would like to recognise the efforts of all the Graham personnel and our supply chain partners who have worked hard to deliver this important project."

(CD)