Peter Hill will leave the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority on 17 April 2026, with the government confirming the change on 15 April. Catriona Schmolke, a hydrogeologist and engineer whose career spans nuclear, energy, water, waste and contaminated land, will take over as interim chair while the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero runs an external search for a permanent successor. (gov.uk) As personnel stories go, this one reaches well beyond Whitehall. The NDA is responsible for cleaning up the UK’s oldest civil nuclear sites, and its March 2026 strategy says that work must be carried out safely, sustainably and responsibly, with care for communities and the environment. The International Atomic Energy Agency makes the same point at global level: decommissioning succeeds only when safety, waste handling and environmental protection are planned early and managed properly over time. (gov.uk)

Ministers say Hill leaves after a short but productive spell in which the board was reshaped, governance arrangements improved, the group secured its biggest grant settlement to date, the 2025/26 year closed with a better safety record, and the organisation was readied for its refreshed strategy. HM Treasury’s Spending Review 2025 set out £13.9 billion in capital DEL for the NDA so it can keep former nuclear sites and facilities safe and secure while decommissioning and managing waste. (gov.uk) That funding backdrop matters because governance in nuclear clean-up is not abstract. Board decisions affect how quickly hazards are reduced, how public money is spent, and whether long-lived waste and remediation programmes stay credible over decades rather than election cycles. (gov.uk)

The scale of the job is easy to miss in a simple chair announcement. The NDA’s current strategy says the group is dealing with 17 sites across the UK and a civil nuclear clean-up bill of about £98.5 billion on 2023/24 figures. It presents the mission as environmental restoration, industrial stewardship and public duty rolled into one. (gov.uk) Its next milestones run far beyond any single appointment. By 2050, the group says it wants most former Magnox sites delicensed, a share of the UK’s plutonium stockpile repackaged and moved towards a disposable form, new waste storage centres established, a suitable site identified for a Geological Disposal Facility, and more land made ready for future use. At Sellafield, the highest priority remains removing waste from legacy ponds and silos, which the NDA describes as the toughest part of the UK clean-up mission. (gov.uk)

Patrick Vallance singled out one immediate achievement in Hill’s time as chair: the smooth transfer of Hunterston B into government ownership. That is more than a line in a departure notice. Hunterston B was scheduled to move to the NDA on 1 April 2026 as the first of seven AGR sites expected to come across for decommissioning, marking the biggest widening of the authority’s remit since it was created. (gov.uk) So this handover comes at a live operational moment, not a quiet one. The refreshed strategy and current business planning both show the NDA being asked to do more, from taking on former EDF reactor sites to supporting plutonium disposition and long-term waste planning. Continuity at board level matters because every extra responsibility brings fresh questions on safety, skills and community confidence. (gov.uk)

That link between trust and delivery is becoming harder to ignore as Britain backs new nuclear alongside clean-up of the old fleet. In its latest annual report, CoRWM, the government’s independent adviser on radioactive waste, said waste questions from Hinkley C, Sizewell C and small modular reactor plans need more study. It also reported spending 422 working days in 2024/25 scrutinising the NDA and Nuclear Waste Services on issues including community engagement, geological disposal costs, project management and interim storage. (gov.uk) For Eco Current readers, that is the real meaning of the chair change. Net zero is not only about adding low-carbon generation. It is also about managing legacy risk honestly, involving communities early and keeping waste decisions transparent enough to earn consent. The NDA’s own strategy now places sustainability across the whole mission rather than treating it as a side concern. (gov.uk)

There are encouraging signs that this work can keep improving if leadership stays steady and evidence-led. The NDA’s 2024/25 annual report says safety incidents fell year on year, environmental performance improved, and the group supported around 5,000 companies while recruiting more than 420 apprentices and 300 graduates. Schmolke’s background in safety, sustainability and major infrastructure should offer some continuity while the permanent search runs. (gov.uk) Research is also starting to show what practical progress looks like. The University of Manchester says its joint £5 million Plutonium Ceramics Academic Hub with Sheffield will fund around 20 PhD students and two post-doctoral researchers to support safe plutonium immobilisation and disposal decisions. The same university says work used at Sellafield cut radioactivity in one effluent treatment system by more than 69 per cent, reduced some actinide discharges to the Irish Sea by up to 90 per cent and lifted waste retrieval operations in legacy ponds by 40 per cent. That is the more useful test for the next NDA chair: turning good governance into safer sites, cleaner processes and a clearer long-term plan for the communities living with the UK’s nuclear legacy. (manchester.ac.uk)