Our next big construction site, Replacement Analytical Project

Construction work has started on the Replacement Analytical Project (RAP) at Sellafield - which will be the new home for laboratories that analyse materials from across the Sellafield site.

This is the first stage of significant site works at the National Nuclear Laboratory's Central Laboratory facility on the Sellafield site.

A new construction village has been put in place outside of the facility to support the incoming project teams that will work on this major infrastructure project.

RAP's head of project Alan Bladon said:

Hundreds of people work on both the engineering design and construction of this major project and to see physical site works begin is something they can be very proud of. It takes a huge collaborative effort to deliver infrastructure projects of this scale and years of complex planning to get to this point.

This is a critical project to ensure the continued safe and compliant delivery of Sellafield's purpose and for construction works to commence gives great confidence in the successful delivery of the project over the next eight years.

The project is being delivered by the Programme Project Partners (PPP) at Sellafield and will equip the facility with the modern tools and laboratories to analyse samples of materials from across the site. It's doing this by adapting and building on the existing capability.

The PPP infrastructure delivery model was mobilised in 2019 with the purpose of transforming major project delivery at the Sellafield nuclear site.

Over the next 6 months, parts of the central laboratory will be stripped out completely to make way for the first step towards installation of a new Special Nuclear Materials (SNM) analytical services laboratory, this will be one of three new capabilities to be put in place.

The project will see completed installation of new laboratories and state of the art equipment by 2029.