Dounreay chief steps down after a year
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Roger Hardy has confirmed he is to step down at the end of the month when Mark Rouse will take over.
Mr Hardy was installed in the site’s hotseat at the start of April last year when Babcock Dounreay Partnership (BDP) was awarded the contract to decommission the former nuclear site.
He insists he will continue to have an interest in the £150 million a year clean-up of the former fast reactor complex.
“I will be moving to London but will be retaining a strong involvement with Dounreay,” he said yesterday.
“I am appointed as chairman of the DSRL board from April 1 and I will continue to lead on the socio-economic work with Caithness and North Sutherland Regeneration Partnership.”
He is also to remain as the Dounreay representative on the Civil Nuclear Police Authority.
Mr Rouse will take over as managing director of Dounreay on April 1 after working with Babcock for 13 years.
He formerly worked under Mr Hardy as a nuclear operations director at Devonport from 2007 to 2010. He is currently director of nuclear safety and quality for Babcock’s marine and technology division, which includes the naval dockyards at Devonport and Rosyth and the nuclear submarine base at Faslane.
Mr Hardy raised eyebrows a month into his position when he announced that the Babcock-led BDP consortium would aim to have completed the clean-up by 2023 – 15 years earlier than envisaged.
The consortium was chosen as the preferred bidder by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority after offering to carry out the clean-up for almost £800 million less than its rival bidder.
There was scepticism from critics on whether it would be possible to achieve the finishing date with such a low budget, but Mr Hardy has always maintained BDP has not under-estimated the costs of the project and that it could be completed by the target date.
During his time in charge, he came under fire from the Dounreay Stakeholder Group when Babcock pulled out of sponsoring events such as the Caithness County Show, Halkirk Highland Games and the Halkirk Country and Western Festival.
But he defended the company’s actions for sponsoring major events only during the bidding process.
He stated that the company is focusing on securing economic growth which would lead to increased job prospects and investment into Caithness.
