Carillion has won an £118m contract with British Nuclear Group to build a storage facility for decommissioned materials at Sellafield in Cumbria.

The contract is the first big construction job to be let since the formation of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, for which BNG manages Sellafield.

Carillion has been working with BNG on the Sellafield Product and Residue Store since 2003.

One of the key purposes of the store is to accommodate materials at Sellafield that needs to be retrieved from older storehouses, repackaged and put in a modern facility. It will receive materials recovered from old fuel manufacturing buildings that are now being decommissioned.

Work on the three-year contract will start this month.

John McDonough, chief executive of Carillion, said: “We are delighted to have secured this contract with BNG with which we share a common approach to the delivery of high-quality, value-for-money solutions to the most stringent health and safety and environmental standards.”