Three independent non-executive directors have been appointed to the board of Sellafield, Britain’s biggest nuclear site, to help to steer the business through a change of ownership that is due to conclude next summer.

Lord Clark of Windermere, Sir Paul Lever and Rear-Admiral Tim Chittenden have been recruited to the company, which employs 2,000 people, The Times has learnt.

Sellafield is the subject of a competition, being run by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, in which private sector consortiums are bidding to win a five-year, £5 billion clean-up contract for the business. The new owner, or Parent Body Organisation, will own the shares in Sellafield for the period of the contract, which is expected to be awarded next summer.

Large American corporations such as Fluor, Bechtel and the Washington Division of URS Corporation are among the bidders, along with British groups such as Amec and Serco.

The independent directors will continue in their posts after the winner of the competition takes over, in an effort to bring continuity to the business.

“These appointees present a unique blend of nuclear safety experience, commitment to Cumbria and an understanding of Government. I am confident that this capability will prove to be a significant benefit to Sellafield Ltd, its employees and the local community,” Mike Parker, chief executive of Sellafield’s parent company British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), said.

The NDA said last month that its competition for the Sellafield site licence company was progressing well, with four bidders engaged in competitive dialogue. The authority has been pressing ahead this year with a wider privatisation and decommissioning programme. In August it announced a preferred bidder to take over management of the low-level waste repository near Drigg, in Cumbria, from the state-owned BNFL.

Lord Clark hails from Cumbria. The former MP for South Shields in Tyne & Wear has been a nonexecutive director of Thales, the defence electronics company, and is chairman of The Forestry Commission and is a director of Carlisle United Football Club. Sir Paul, a former diplomat and ambassador to Germany until 2003, is chairman of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies.

Rear-Admiral Chittenden, a nuclear engineer for 34 years, is safety and assurance director for BAE Systems Submarine Solutions at Barrow-in-Furness, having previously been programme director for the Astute nuclear submarine project.

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