A £14m archive centre for the nuclear industry has been given the go-ahead in Caithness.

The archive will be built near the Dounreay experimental power complex and is expected to create up to 20 jobs.

The facility would hold between 20 to 30m digital, paper and photographic records from civil nuclear sites in the UK dating back to the 1940s.

The project was first conceived in 2008, and now the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has announced it will begin the next phase.

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The development will be constructed on land owned by Highland Council near Wick Airport. It is thought the new building could be open by 2016.

It will be located a few miles from Dounreay, which was built in the 1950s and is currently being decommissioned.

The NDA is collaborating with local authority to provide a home for the council’s North Highland Archive within the new centre.

The NDA has a remit from the government to work to reduce the impact on local communities in decommissioning the UK’s redundant nuclear sites.

It is reported the authority chose to site the archive in Caithness to bring economic benefits to a community which has been identified as a priority area for NDA socio economic support.

(IT)