Plans to build the new Sizewell C nuclear power plant in Suffolk have been reconfirmed by the government along with a £700m investment.
Business Secretary Grant Shapps has visited the proposed site just weeks after the Chancellor confirmed construction of the long-awaited power plant during his Autumn Statement.
Funding for the project was signed off by Boris Johnson at the start of September in one of his last acts as prime minister.
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It aims to generate enough low-carbon electricity to supply six million homes and help protect the UK from energy market volatility.
The plant is a joint endeavour with French energy giant EDF and is expected to take a decade to build at the cost of between £20-£30bn.
While Sizewell C has the backing of the Labour Party and unions, critics say it is too expensive and the new power source will take too long to come online.
Grant Shapps said he would push the project ahead by driving forward the British Energy Security bill through parliament, which was published in July but put on hold in October.
Speaking to reporters at the site, the cabinet minister said he “queried” estimates that the costs could wrack up to as much as £30bn, as he was pressed on where the rest of the funding was coming from.
Grant Shapps speaks to reporters
The government’s £700m investment is for the early development stage of the project, but Mr Shapps said he was confident money could be raised to build it from private investors.
“We’re very confident actually, because we’ve been speaking to potential investors,” he said.
“We’ve got no concerns at all about people investing in Britain.”
Mr Shapps blamed rising global gas prices on Vladimir Putin’s “illegal march on Ukraine”.
“We need more clean, affordable power generated within our borders – British energy for British homes,” he said.
But the Stop Sizewell C campaign group claim the plant “can neither lower energy bills nor give the UK energy independence”.
“Despite the government’s paltry £700m, there is still a huge amount of money to find, and no one is prepared to come clean about what the ultimate cost will be,” they said.
Greenpeace UK also criticised the project, saying the expected launch of Great British Nuclear to assist it “is clearly ironic as new nuclear is neither great nor British”.
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“Projects have been plagued by massive delays and ballooning costs while the government is seeking to have Sizewell C – a French-designed and built reactor – funded by foreign investment funds,” said policy director Doug Parr.
“Several academic institutes have shown we can have a 100% renewable system that would be cheaper than those based on nuclear or fossil fuels and it has the added benefit of not creating millennia of worry over the nuclear waste that future generations will end up dealing with.
“Why are ministers still obsessing about astronomically expensive, delay-plagued nuclear plants when we have much better options available?”
As well as moving ahead with Sizewell C, Mr Shapps hinted yesterday that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak could back down on his position to ban new onshore wind farms amid a growing Tory rebellion.
Ex-prime ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss are among some 30 Conservatives backing former cabinet secretary Simon Clarke’s pro-wind amendment to the Levelling Up Bill.
The ban was put in place in 2015 by former Conservative prime minister David Cameron, but calls for a re-think have grown amid efforts to secure the UK’s energy independence as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has squeezed supplies.
A man has been arrested by police investigating a “significant” wildfire that triggered a major incident in Northern Ireland.
More than 100 firefighters and 15 fire appliances were deployed on Saturday to Sandbank Road, Hilltown, to tackle the blaze which is believed to have been caused deliberately, fire chiefs said.
Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS) said the fire had a front of approximately two miles “including a large area of forestry close to property”.
It was extinguished at 2.53am on Sunday and the major incident status lifted, the NIFRS said.
“The cause of this fire is believed to have been deliberate,” chief fire and rescue officer Aidan Jennings said.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland said on Sunday that a 25-year-old man had been arrested “on suspicion of arson being reckless as to whether life would be endangered, and non-related driving offences”.
“He remains in custody at this time as enquiries continue into the circumstances surrounding the fire,” the force added.
The wildfire on Sandbank Road, Hilltown. Pic: Sky Watch NI
More than 100 firefighters were at the scene of the fire. Pic: Sky Watch NI
Various fires erupted across England this week amid uncharacteristically warm and dry conditions for the time of year.
On Saturday, helicopters were deployed to tackle Scotland’s fourth wildfire this week, with police saying a blaze “which started in the Newton Stewart area has spread northwards and is expected to reach the Loch Doon area of East Ayrshire around 12am on Sunday”.
Police Scotland added: “As a precautionary measure members of the public are asked to avoid the Loch Doon area and anyone who may be camping in the area is advised to leave.”
Moors Valley Country Park blackened by fires this week
Elsewhere in England, Devon and Cornwall Police said they were assisting the fire service with temporary road closures on the A30 in the Bolventor area as they tackle “a number of fires” on moorland.
In Dorset, Moors Valley Country Park was forced to close after multiple wildfires broke out there on Wednesday.
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Separate incidents were then reported at Upton Heath in Poole on Wednesday, and nearby Canford Heath in the early hours of Thursday.
Friday was officially the warmest day of the year so far – with temperatures in the south of England reaching 23C (73.4F) – the highest since 21 September last year, according to the Met Office.
The weather conditions triggered a “severe” wildfire rating for parts of the UK on Tuesday.
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