NMP boss looks back on the first year running the nuclear site

Alan Irving talks to Graham Campbell - Edited Versionl

 

JUST over 12 months ago, Sellafield passed into the hands of Nuclear Management Partners, a consortium of American, French and British companies.

The deal was said to be on the same financial scale as the 2012 London Olympics, with the potential to have a massive impact on both Sellafield’s operations and on West Cumbria’s economy for the next 50 years.

Nuclear Management Partners were handed the reins in November 2008, five months after the consortium won the bid to land a lucrative contract from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. It is worth around £1.3 billion a year (but with a potential bonus of up to £50 million a year, depending on results).

Competition was fierce: NMP (URS Washington, Ariva and Amec) was up against four other powerful global bidders. Only four people were privy to the identity of the winning bidder – they were sworn to secrecy until the fateful announcement at precisely 10 o’clock on the morning of Friday July 11, 2008.

First to hear the news (on behalf of NMP) was Graham Campbell. By all accounts, the-then general manager of URS Washington, the consortium’s American arm who holds a similar position for NMP in Cumbria, was told even before the Prime Minister.

The stakes were high. “That morning,” says the affable Mancunian, “I was alone in my office (at Ingwell Hall, Westlakes); the rest of the team, 30-odd people, were in the training room down the corridor, out of the way. I was able to tell our chairman Tom Zarges and managing director Bob Peddie immediately – they were also quietly out of the way in a corner! What we did next was walk down the corridor with a long face purposely. Everyone shouted ‘what’s happened?’ fearing from our looks that we’d lost out... I just raised an arm saying ‘we’ve won’.

“It was crazy, there was such a tremendous relief, not just at winning the job but all the efforts that had been put in. People had moved countries, dislocated their families to work night and day on the bid.