Chapter 20 Nirex and the great denouement

Abstract

Abstract We saw in Chapter 14 how the British Geological Survey came under pressure in various ways in the 1980s - the 'Thatcher yeaars'. Some of its basic funding was diverted to the universities, and one of the reasons for the collaboration between the Survey and the universities was that it provided a means whereby it could recoup its 'own' money, so to speak, via the NERC-funded PhD studentships. However, that in itself was insufficient, and increasingly the Survey had to go into the market to help fund its activities through contract or consulting activities. With its large staff and accumulated experience and databases, the BGS (or Institute of Geological Sciences before the beginning of 1984) could readily aspire to be the largest and best geological consulting agency in Britain, although taking on a consultative role entailed a change in its ethos. We can see this manifested in 1991 when three new divisions were established: International, Marketing, and Corporate Coordination and Information. The posts of Chief Geologist, Chief Geochemist and Chief Geophysicist were abolished. Four new programme divisions were established: Thematic Maps and Onshore Surveys; Petroleum Geology, Geophysics and Offshore Surveys; minerals and Geochemical Surveys; and Groundwater and Geotechnical Surveys (Hackett 1999, p. 7). A considerable amount of the BGS's consulting work had to do wth the nuclear industry and radioactive waste disposal. 1 In the early 1970s, the BGS (then IGS) and the Natural Environment Research Council began to focus on the pending major problem of nuclear waste disposal, and in