Engineering news
Photo: Gary Henderson
Up to 1,600 jobs are to be lost at 12 Magnox nuclear power sites by September next year, the company has announced.
The company said decommissioning the sites was always going to lead to a reduction in staffing levels. Eleven of the plants have already shut down and the only one in operation, Wylfa on Anglesey in North Wales, is due to stop generating power at the end of the year.
Following a review of the closure programme, Magnox said it expected between 1,400 and 1,600 job losses up to September 2016, including staff, agency and contract workers.
"These proposed reductions arise from planned step downs in the work programme at a number of sites and the implementation of a more streamlined operating model for delivering decommissioning.
"We will seek wherever possible for these reductions to be through voluntary means and we will endeavour to retrain staff in roles where we are currently reliant on agency resources.
"We are now going through a period of formal collective consultation with our recognised trade unions and individual consultation and counselling staff before an appropriate best fit exercise begins."
The 12 nuclear power sites managed by Magnox are: Berkeley, Gloucestershire; Bradwell, Essex; Chapelcross, Dumfriesshire; Dungeness A, Kent; Harwell, Oxfordshire; Hinkley Point A, Somerset; Hunterston A, Ayrshire; Oldbury, Gloucestershire; Sizewell A, Suffolk; Trawsfynydd, North Wales; Winfrith, Dorset; and Wylfa, Anglesey, North Wales.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said: "The NDA has been assured that efforts will be undertaken to mitigate the impact of any job losses through an emphasis on voluntary redundancy, re-skilling and the potential for alternative employment in Magnox Limited's parent companies, Cavendish Nuclear and Fluor Corporation."