UKAEA housing, 10-32 Sweyn Road. View from south east

Description UKAEA housing, 10-32 Sweyn Road. View from south east

Date 29/3/2017

Collection Historic Environment Scotland

Catalogue Number DP 258490

Category On-line Digital Images

Scope and Content As well as detached and semi-detached houses, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority also built four blocks of three-storey flats. This addressed the local authority’s request for a higher density of housing to save the use of valuable agricultural land. This concern was reflected in planning processes nationwide, with councils torn between the need to provide housing and the necessity of maintaining good land for farming. 16 three-bed and 32 four-bed flats were built, and were allocated to mainly young married couples without children. For the UKAEA, housing was allocated according to grade. As well as flats, UKAEA housing consisted of A, B and C types, with A being the largest for higher grade staff. If a staff member was promoted or their family increased, they became eligible for a larger house. As an aside to nuclear development, the built environment of nuclear townships in Britain is overlooked in favour of its technical and scientific elements. Yet the consequences of the atomic programme extend beyond the technological: the social infrastructure behind the science was integral to the success of many nuclear ventures. This had its most significant impact following the 1954 decision to site the country’s first fast breeder reactor establishment at Dounreay in Caithness, the most northerly county of the British mainland. The arrival of the UKAEA brought nuclear science to a rural landscape with an agricultural skills base. The chosen site was located close to the town of Thurso, the population of which grew from 3000 to 9000 as a result of the UKAEA ‘importing’ skilled scientists and engineers into the county to work alongside local workers to ensure the safe running of the establishment. To accommodate this influx the town underwent an extensive period of planning, with 1007 houses built to house the new citizens who were termed ‘the atomics’. By the end of the building programme in May 1963, four recognised estates of UKAEA houses had been built in Thurso: Castlegreen, Ormlie, Pennyland and Mount Vernon. Accommodating this population stands as an example of quick, complex change, triggered by a technical experiment with enduring social consequences. The housing developments were managed by the Thurso architectural firm of Sinclair Macdonald & Son, whose archives are held by Historic Environment Scotland. The UKAEA-built houses are now owned privately or by Pentland Housing Association.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/1576202

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