Shutdown leaves sense of injustice: John Arlidge hears how workers feel short-changed by the closure process

Alistair Cruickshank stands proudly over his life's work. Beneath his feet 1,000 tonnes of uranium, plutonium and liquid sodium at 700 degrees centigrade generate enough electricity to light the oil city of Aberdeen.

But on Thursday the power gauge, which hovers around 240 megawatts, will drop to zero. Dounreay, hailed in the 1950s as a symbol of Britain's commitment to nuclear power and the economic saviour of the Highlands, is shutting down.

While anti-nuclear campaigners express delight at the closure of Dounreay this week, the 2,000-strong nuclear family of scientists and reactor floor workers who moved to Thurso to find jobs in the shadow of Scotland's largest 'golf ball' are angry.

Scientists insist that Dounreay's prototype fast breeder reactor programme, the first in the world to generate commercial electricity and produce its own fuel in the process, has proved its worth and switching it off will be a costly mistake.

Mr Cruickshank, 53, projects manager, started at Dounreay in 1969. He said: 'People like me have devoted their working lives to making the Dounreay experiment work. When we started work in 1959, we led the world in fast breeder technology but now, just as the Japanese and others are beginning to see its advantages, we are bowing out of the race.'

In the Sixties and Seventies, as the Government made plans to build a commercial reactor by the turn of the century, 2,400 people worked at Dounreay. Today the figure is 1,500 and the number is set to fall to 1,000 by the end of the year.

Union leaders, who accept that the increased availability of cheap oil, gas and nuclear fuels mean that closure is inevitable, are furious that private sector bids are being sought for the pounds 2.5bn decommissioning work. Ministers, they argue, should waive competitive tendering regulations and award contracts to the existing management to safeguard jobs.

Brian Hutcheon, union spokesman for the 600 industrial workers at the plant, said: 'When Dounreay started, no expense was spared relocating scientists from all over Britain - the people and their skills were what mattered. Now it is closing down, it is all about money.

'Dismantling Dounreay will provide work for many years but outside companies could bring in their own workers. The Government should recognise the commitment of the people of Caithness who have made the project a success and ensure that as many of them as possible keep their jobs.'

Dounreay has transformed Caithness, an area the size of Greater Manchester with a population of 26,000. The number of people living in Thurso, 20 miles from John O'Groats, has more than trebled in the past 40 years and plant workers spend an estimated pounds 20m in wages in the region each year.