Life of Sizewell B extended by another 20 years

A nuclear power plant on the East Coast will produce electricity for a further 20 years after a deal was reached between its owner EDF and the government.

Sizewell B, near Leiston, Suffolk, started operating in 1995 and was due to reach the end of its life in 2035, but will now continue operating until 2055.

Robert Gunn, station director of Sizewell B, said the deal would ensure hundreds of jobs were safeguarded.

But Chris Wilson, from the campaign group Together Against Sizewell C (TASC), said future generations would be left dealing with the financial and environmental impact.

EDF runs Sizewell B and employs 620 staff and about 300 contractors at the plant.

The agreement will enable about £800m of plant investment by EDF, with the agreement due to be finalised later in the year.

Sizewell B is the country's only pressurised water reactor and provides energy to more than two million homes, producing 3% of the UK's energy.

According to EDF, the extension to its life would generate enough electricity to meet the needs of every home in East Anglia for almost 45 years.

"Securing another 20 years also safeguards existing jobs and allows us to continue to recruit another generation of Suffolk young people for the nation's nuclear renaissance," he added.

The government has described keeping the plant open until 2055 as "good news", while Lord Patrick Vallance, minister for science, innovation, research and nuclear, said extending the life of a nuclear plant was a " normal thing to do".

Wilson said TASC applauded the goal to phase out fossil fuels, but condemned "the government's continued reliance on dirty and dangerous nuclear power".

He said this created a "multi-generational financial and environmental liability", leaving our descendants with years of flood defence maintenance and the "insurmountable challenge of safe, millennia-long, highly radioactive nuclear waste isolation, amid a changing climate".