Bradwell power station decommissioning process reaches 'milestone'

One of the UK's earliest nuclear power stations has entered a "safe state".

The decommissioned site at Bradwell, Essex, is the first in the country to enter care and maintenance (C&M) status.

It is a major milestone in the clearance of the 60-year-old site, which stopped operating in 2002.

Richard Harrington, the minister for nuclear power, said the news marked a "welcome chapter" in Bradwell's "environmental clean-up journey".

The two Magnox-type reactors at Bradwell were brought into service in 1962.

Both have now been defuelled, decommissioned and covered in weatherproof cladding to create "safe stores" where waste will be kept for around 70 years to allow any radiation to decay naturally.

After that, the site can be cleared.

David Peattie, chief executive of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, said the site had "pioneered methods for tackling challenges" at its 16 other sites.

He also said Bradwell entering C&M status was a "historic moment".

Work on the coastal site on the Dengie Peninsula began in 1957 and at its peak the plant produced enough electricity to power an area the size of Chelmsford, Colchester and Southend.

The site will now be managed by Sizewell A, in Suffolk, which is also being decommissioned.

Brian Main, the local community liaison council chairman, said Bradwell had been "a good neighbour for almost 60 years".

Campaigners from Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group (BANNG) also said the site entering C&M status was "good news, despite some huge hiccups along the way".

On Twitter, the group maintained it would still be saying a "vehement no" to Bradwell B - a new nuclear power station which it is proposed to be built next to the existing site.

Plans for the facility are currently being drawn up by EDF Energy and China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN),