More nuclear power plants will be approved across England and Wales as the UK government moves to severely cut approvals red tape under its ‘Plan for Change’. The changes will for the first time allow for Small Modular Reactors to be built.
The new approach follows recent changes to planning laws, the scrapping of the 3-strike rule for judicial reviews on infrastructure projects, and ‘application of common-sense to environmental rules’.
The government says that an industry pioneered in Britain has been suffocated by regulations, and this saw investment collapse, leaving only one nuclear power plant – Hinkley Point C – under construction. And this was after years of delay caused by unnecessary rules – for example companies required to produce a 30 000 page environmental assessment to get planning permission.
The new plan will shake up the planning rules to make it easier to build nuclear plants across the country, to be achieved by including mini-nuclear power stations in planning rules for the first time, scrapping the ‘set list of 8’ sites – meaning nuclear sites could be built anywhere across England and Wales, removing the expiry date on nuclear planning rules, so projects don’t get timed out and industry can plan for the long term, and setting up a Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce that will spearhead improvements to the regulations to help more companies build here. This will report directly to the prime minister.
Prime minister Keir Starmer said: “Currently, nuclear development is restricted to eight sites – as part of archaic planning rules that haven’t been looked at since 2011 … the refreshed planning framework will help streamline the process to encourage investment and enable developers to identify the best sites for their projects, supporting development at a wider range of locations. Developers will be encouraged to bring forward sites as soon as possible at the pre-application stage in the planning process, speeding up overall timelines. It will include new nuclear technologies such as small and advanced modular reactors for the first time, providing flexibility to co-locate them with energy intensive industrial sites such as AI data centres. There will also continue to be robust criteria for nuclear reactor locations, including restrictions near densely populated areas and military activity, alongside community engagement and high environmental standards.”
Alongside reforms to the siting process, a specialist taskforce will lead on making sure nuclear regulation incentivises investment, to deliver new projects more quickly and cost efficiently, while upholding high safety and security standards.
