“This is a significant milestone,” said Whitehaven & Workington MP Josh MacAlister as the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority confirmed £1 million on 14 November 2025 to produce a Pioneer Park masterplan on land next to Sellafield. The move puts West Cumbria’s energy ambitions on the board and starts turning a long‑talked‑about site into jobs and investment.

Local developer BEC will draw up the plan, mapping how clean energy options could sit alongside AI‑ready data centre capacity, while working around Sellafield’s operational needs. After market engagement over the summer, BEC says it expects to publish the masterplan before the end of 2025.

NDA chief executive David Peattie said the authority is “proud to support this next stage”, adding that Pioneer Park can bring “new technologies, skills and investment” to West Cumbria. That message is echoed locally: leaders want a plan that turns the area’s expertise into long‑term industry.

Cumberland Council leader Mark Fryer said the funding shows momentum and gives the resource to set out an ambitious scheme. He has argued for new power capacity at Moorside to attract employers well beyond Sellafield’s decommissioning timetable.

MacAlister chairs the Cumberland Nuclear Futures Board, which brings the NDA, Cumberland Council, Sellafield Ltd and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero into the same room. He has called the land release the county’s “best chance” of new nuclear since NuGen folded in 2018, though reactors are not guaranteed.

Sellafield remains the anchor for local jobs, with around 11,000 people directly employed on site and a far wider supply chain. Across the North West, the civil nuclear workforce now exceeds 29,000, the highest in at least a decade, according to the industry’s 2024 jobs map.

BEC, a joint venture between the NDA and Cumberland Council, gives the project a local delivery arm with national backing. Its brief covers the clean energy project and what could sit alongside it, from skills to grid‑hungry digital operators.

In June, ministers said Moorside land-now badged Pioneer Park-would be freed to be leased and marketed by a local development corporation, with engagement running this year. Government has also made clear that some land must stay available for Sellafield’s mission, including plutonium disposition.

For supply‑chain firms from Maryport to Millom, the upside is not just construction. If clean energy and AI‑ready data centres land side‑by‑side, operations and maintenance could support durable contracts; networks such as Britain’s Energy Coast Business Cluster will be watching procurement timetables.

Nationally, the government’s 10 June decision to pick Rolls‑Royce SMR to build the first small modular reactors sets the tone, but site choices and consents still take time. Today’s £1m is about planning and market testing, not a build contract.

The NDA says it invests around £15m a year in socio‑economic projects near its sites-a flow of funding designed to draw in further private investment. This latest grant should be judged on whether it brings new capital into West Cumbria through 2026 and beyond.

West Cumbria has heard big promises before. The difference now is a locally steered brief, a formal board linking Whitehall to the coast, and a deadline to get the Pioneer Park masterplan out by year‑end. If the detail stacks up, the jobs and apprenticeships that follow will be the story.