THE Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has announced it will move into newly-renovated buildings at Harwell as part of a £30m regeneration at the science campus.

The campus has invested in 100,000sq ft of new and renovated buildings for tech firms to move into.

Among the buildings is the 50,000sq ft former RAF base on the site.

The NDA, which has been based in temporary buildings on the site, has been the first to take a lease, snapping up 15,000sq ft of offices on a ten-year agreement.

The authority’s 10 staff and about 110 more who work for NDA subsidiary Radioactive Waste Management (RWM) will soon move across to their new home in the former RAF base.

The NDA is a public body that was created through the Energy Act 2004 and is tasked with safely decommissioning the UK’s new power plants and research laboratories.

Harwell Campus management director William Cooper said his team were in negotiations and discussions with a number of other tech firms about taking up leases on the other 85,000sq ft of new and renovated buildings.

The good news about the NDA comes after the announcement last week that the government will invest £100m in a new science and technology research network dubbed the Rosalind Franklin Institute which will have a base at Harwell.

The institute will be run by seven UK universities and provide a place for academics and researchers to come together and test theories.