Supply of Road Salt 2025-2029

The grounds for direct award are the cost effectiveness of transport arrangements and the bulk salt rates offered to the Dounreay site from the Highland Council (HC). HC arranges a cargo boat delivery from the Midlands to Scrabster or Wick Harbour.

NRS Dounreay is then able to arrange collection from either Harbour or HC Depot using our own transport. HC has been used previously to supply road salt to the Dounreay site. There is no reasonable alternative supplier within the Highlands with the capacity to supply the quantities of salt the Dounreay site requires annually.

NTS Dounreay has few other options for salt delivery suppliers within a 250-mile radius of the site, however utilising such suppliers would incur huge delivery costs via road. The salt would also be delivered in 1-ton bulk bags, leading to additional waste and costs associated with the disposal approximately 800 1-ton bags a year.

HC use these huge salt supply cargo vessels to supply huge quantities of bulk road salt to various ports within Scotland to reduce excessive delivery capacity on our roads and infrastructures as much as reasonably practicable.