MSloane Consulting has its radars on any requirements from nuclear construction projects such as used construction equipment.The recent successful auction of three Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) sites emphatically displayed the level of optimism surrounding the UK’s new nuclear power construction programme.
The sites were three plots of farmland − 178ha at Wylfa, Anglesey, 48ha at Oldbury, Gloucestershire, and 200ha at Bradwell, Essex − each adjacent to ageing Magnox nuclear power plants, which the NDA was attempting to sell during the biggest recession since the Great Depression.
With property and land prices in falling, the NDA placed a reserve price of £35M on each site and, although it was hopeful of raising more than this, it surely underestimated just how highly treasured these desolate strips of land were. The three sites sold in April for a combined total of £387M, with a joint venture of German generators Eon and RWE Npower buying Wylfa and Oldbury and French generator EDF snapping up Bradwell.
