{"id":524202,"date":"2025-10-24T07:48:36","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T07:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/524202\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T07:48:36","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T07:48:36","slug":"update-on-new-nuclear-power-station-near-bristol-as-plan-submitted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/524202\/","title":{"rendered":"Update on new nuclear power station near Bristol as plan submitted"},"content":{"rendered":"

A government-owned company is investigating the site’s suitabilityAlex Seabrook<\/strong><\/a> Local democracy reporter, Alex Seabrook<\/strong> and Local Democracy Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n

05:00, 24 Oct 2025<\/p>\n

\"ItIt would be built north of the former Oldbury power station (pictured) (Image: Western Gateway )<\/p>\n

Plans have been submitted for ground investigations for a new nuclear power station on the coast of the Severn Estuary. Great British Energy \u2013 Nuclear has applied to South Gloucestershire<\/a> Council for permission to carry out the investigations near Oldbury-on-Severn.<\/p>\n

Great British Energy \u2013 Nuclear is a company owned by the government which invests in clean energy. Its plans include drilling boreholes into the ground and taking samples, and carrying out load tests of the soil.<\/p>\n

No date has been set for when the council is due to decide on the plans. The new power station would be built north of the existing Oldbury Power Station, which is currently being decommissioned<\/a>. The ground investigation is part of pre-application work needed before the planning application for the actual power station is submitted.<\/p>\n

In planning documents, the company said: “The works are needed to inform the site characterisation work in support of a proposed nuclear power station. The outputs of the proposed ground investigation works are an important element to inform the future proposals for a new nuclear power station, the need for which is well established in national policy.”<\/p>\n

The Oldbury Power Station opened in 1967 and began decommissioning in 2012. The 18-hectare site is a candidate for a new type of nuclear power station, using small modular reactors. These are easier and cheaper to install than the traditional forms of nuclear power stations.<\/p>\n

Rolls-Royce has been appointed to build the new type of reactors. But it’s unclear whether the government will choose Oldbury, or another site in north Wales, as the first location for small nuclear reactors. Great British Energy \u2013 Nuclear acquired both the sites in summer last year.<\/p>\n

As well as providing a massive amount of clean energy, the new power station is expected to create thousands of jobs during construction and hundreds during its operation. The power station features prominently in the West of England Combined Authority’s<\/a> new growth strategy.<\/p>\n

The strategy states: “At Oldbury, the potential for tens of billions of pounds of government and industry investment in small modular reactors, could create up to 3,000 construction jobs and hundreds of long-term roles in rural and coastal communities.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A government-owned company is investigating the site’s suitabilityAlex Seabrook Local democracy reporter, Alex Seabrook and Local Democracy Reporter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,748,393,728,4884,12717,10299,10302,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-524202","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-bristol","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-environment","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-planning","14":"tag-south-gloucestershire","15":"tag-south-gloucestershire-council","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115428047022568657","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}