During its history, spanning almost three-quarters of a century, AWE has played a critical role in the UK’s national safety and security by designing, developing, manufacturing, and maintaining the warhead component of the UK’s independent nuclear deterrent.
In 2020, Parliament announced the programme to build a Replacement Warhead, a key element of the 2021 Integrated Review of Defence, Development and Foreign Policy. Following this, in March this year, the Ministry of Defence published the Defence Nuclear Enterprise Command Paper. The Command Paper set out the UK’s Defence Nuclear Enterprise as a critical ‘National Endeavour,’ detailing the activities required to operate, maintain, renew, and sustain the UK’s nuclear deterrent to ensure long-term security.
Defence for the future
AWE’s role in the National Endeavour is clear. AWE is responsible for delivering the Replacement Warhead, alongside its existing commitment to maintain the current in-service warhead for as long as required.
To assure our mission, AWE is embarking on a multi-year, multi-billion-pound portfolio of infrastructure investments across its estate. This will see us refurbish, replace, upgrade, or decommission and remove existing infrastructure and equipment, and create new infrastructure and facilities to support our long-term capability.
At the heart of this programme is the Future Materials Campus (FMC), a collection of facilities that will drive nuclear science and innovation in construction, science, technology, and other fields, securing the UK’s position as a world-leader in new nuclear technologies.
Next generation infrastructure
The FMC infrastructure and facilities will be developed to world-class standards and the first of their kind, enabling nuclear science and technological innovation for future generations. It will also require the development of new equipment and processes for the laboratories and science centres that it will accommodate.
This is an enormously complex programme, anticipated to fundamentally change not just AWE’s approach to infrastructure development, but to evolve as a blueprint for other large, complex UK infrastructure projects in the future.
The complexity of FMC’s development comes from a multitude of areas; the required materials, the development of the processes that will fit inside each facility, and the logistics required to see the programme through to completion. The build will take place on a highly regulated, nuclear-licensed site, with all the implications for safety and national security which that brings, while maintaining ‘business as usual’ during its construction.
Major project delivery
Over the last couple of decades, the UK has delivered, or begun to deliver, several major infrastructure projects, including the London 2012 Olympics, Crossrail, the Tideway Tunnel and HS2. The development of FMC will be just as complex, changing the physical landscape and skyline of AWE’s Aldermaston estate. It’s important that we learn lessons and take best practice from these projects, carefully planning how this programme will be delivered.
Many elements of FMC were originally conceived as standalone projects, with their own supply chains and budgets, before being collectively grouped into what will now be FMC. It will incorporate a reimagined approach to how AWE operates and delivers infrastructure, seeing a new organisational design, and a single approach to delivery with a standardised system. This ‘programmatic approach’ will enable AWE to consider every single aspect – construction, safety, cost, logistics, labour - as a single but interconnected programme of works.
Although FMC is a change in approach, we remain subject to strict governance and controls. These include those from our regulators, the Office for Nuclear Regulation and the Environment Agency. Their intent is to ensure nuclear safety and environmental protection are maintained and enhanced throughout the entirety of the project.
Supporting the local community
AWE is a major employer and neighbour in Berkshire and Hampshire, and FMC provides an opportunity to tell local communities about AWE, its history, and the critical role it plays in national nuclear security. The investment in AWE’s sites will support job creation, contribute to the local, regional, and national economy, and promote the development of skills.
Engaging with people living and working around the FMC site will be an integral component of the programme. We have already conducted several initial community events in local towns and villages. We will continue to work with and listen to our local communities to build trust and maintain confidence in our organisation.
Not only does AWE employ many people from the surrounding areas, but we also support local schools with STEM activities. Stimulating an interest in STEM subjects is not only good for AWE but for the UK as a whole, as many of the people that will eventually work in FMC – scientists, engineers, technologists and more – are currently in primary school. It is therefore important that AWE carefully considers how this cohort is engaged and inspired.
We’re just at the start of this huge adventure – one which we take on with full knowledge of the responsibility within our hands.
Sharif Narouz is Future Materials Campus (FMC) Programme Director at AWE Nuclear Security
September 1935: Class A4 locomotive enters service
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