Nuclear Waste Services is procuring specialist technical support under a £17.8M Environmental Safety Case: General Tech inc Geological & Hydrogeological framework for the Low Level Waste Repository (LLWR) in Cumbria. The framework will cover geological, hydrogeological and wider environmental safety case inputs needed to justify continued operation and long‑term post‑closure performance of engineered vaults and near‑surface disposal structures. Consultants will be expected to provide site characterisation, groundwater and contaminant transport modelling, and support for regulatory submissions under the UK nuclear and environmental permitting regime.

The first UK carbon storage scheme to reuse existing infrastructure has secured a lease with The Crown Estate, clearing a key regulatory hurdle for offshore CO₂ injection and long-term subsurface storage. Repurposing existing offshore pipelines, platforms and wells is expected to cut upfront capex versus newbuild assets and shorten the timeline to first injection. For civil and geotechnical teams, the focus will be on verifying legacy asset integrity, adapting well and pipeline materials for CO₂ service, and reassessing seabed and reservoir behaviour under cyclic injection pressures.

WSP has been appointed to all three lots of the Environment Agency’s National Groundwater Modelling Framework, covering strategic modelling, regional and catchment-scale studies, and site-specific assessments. The framework will support regulation of abstraction, flood risk and drought management by standardising numerical groundwater models used to assess aquifer behaviour, contaminant migration and interactions with rivers and infrastructure. Consultants working on EA-regulated projects should expect closer alignment to EA-approved modelling tools, datasets and calibration approaches over the framework term.