THE NORTHERN Ireland construction group Graham has won a contract worth a potential £100 million (€118 million) to design and build a radioactive waste disposal facility in Scotland.

The Hillsborough-headquartered group beat five other firms to win the contract to develop the facility at Dounreay, the site of the UK’s former centre of fast reactor research and development.

The site was formerly home to some of the UK’s top scientists and engineers who worked on research projects to develop nuclear energy for electricity production.

Dounreay is now Scotland’s largest nuclear clean-up and demolition project.

The company which is responsible for the closure programme, Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL), has confirmed that Graham Construction has been selected as the preferred bidder to develop the nuclear dump.

The contract, which must also win the approval of the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, is expected to be formally awarded in March.

Leo Martin, a director of Graham, said the company was delighted to be selected as preferred bidder.

“This is a very important project for us in a market sector which we are looking to expand into further,” he said.

Graham, which is a privately owned company, has an estimated annual turnover of more than £266 million and employs about 1,000 people.

The Hillsborough company will design and construct two sub-surface vaults for the disposal of solid low-level radioactive waste from the site clean-up.

Planning permission is in place for up to six vaults in close proximity to the site but the DSRL hopes to reduce the number that will need to be built through “waste minimisation practices” in decommissioning.

It is expected that up to 100 jobs could be created during the construction of the facility; a quarter of the work is earmarked to be sub-contracted to local firms. Construction is likely to begin this autumn.