Britain kicks off the nuclear race – but who wants a reactor next door?

Neglecting Britain’s potential to be a nuclear powerhouse has been a “colossal mistake”, Grant Shapps said on Tuesday as he earmarked £20bn for a new fleet of mini reactors.

Referencing the anti-nuclear protests of the early 1980s when hundreds of thousands of activists marched across Britain, the Energy Secretary said “eventually that mood even percolated its way into government itself”.

He added: “It’s time to put those misplaced fears of the past to rest and recognise the immense benefits that clean, reliable, home-produced nuclear energy can bring.”

However, despite a shift in the political mood toward nuclear power – with even Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer acknowledging its importance – Shapps faces a different challenge for Britain’s fleet of mini reactors: finding somewhere to put them.

The planned £20bn Sizewell C power plant in Suffolk has been snubbed not just by many locals but also by pension funds.

The BT Pension Scheme and NatWest have told campaign group Stop Sizewell C that they will not back the project, joining money managers Legal & General and Aviva in their reticence.

Alison Downes, of Stop Sizewell C, said: “There’s very strong opposition here. I mean, it’s not just local communities” but also wildlife charities such as the RSPB, which has warned of a “major impact” on the area. It’s a region popular with pensioners and retirees rather than would-be nuclear technicians, she added.

Yet local MPs are “very, very keen to have nuclear power in their area”, Mr Shapps said on Tuesday.

Shapps comments came as he launched Great British Nuclear, an arms-length government body, and triggered the start of a competition to secure contracts for the designs of the small modular reactors (SMRs), also known as mini-nukes.

Companies including Rolls-Royce and General Electric are among those vying for the lucrative contracts.

“There are so many locations where people are clamouring to get the high-paid skills and jobs,” Shapps said.

Public support for nuclear power is mixed. According to polling from YouGov, 31pc of adults tend to support the power source and 17pc strongly support it, figures which have drifted up in recent years. But strong opposition comes from 10pc of voters and a tendency to oppose from 21pc.

However, in the unlikely environs of the Snowdonia national park, nuclear planners may find a friendlier welcome, where there is demand for jobs and a familiarity with working with hazardous materials.

It is home to Trawsfynydd nuclear power station, which was approved in 1958, closed in 1993, and is seen as a potential site for new SMR power plants.

It is also a different way of providing jobs outside of agriculture and tourism, which currently prop up the local economy, said Dyfrig Siencyn, leader of Gwynedd Council.

He said: “We have a desperate need to have good-quality jobs.”

There is some resistance in the area, he conceded, but the most reliable indicator is locals voting with their feet until better work arrives.

“Our area is declining in population at the moment, we’re losing people, so we’re in need of good-quality work,” Siencyn added.

There is also expected to be huge demand for power as industries abandon natural gas and other fossil fuels and rely on an ever-greener electricity grid. Ministers want renewables to generate 25pc of the country’s electricity needs by 2050.

John Stevenson, the Tory MP for Carlisle and a prominent pro-nuclear voice in Parliament, believes GBN should start its search in places where nuclear power is already embedded in communities.

“The launch is very positive, it’s clear that the Government is taking a much greater interest in nuclear energy, and that is extremely welcome,” he said.

“The starting point for SMRs, in my view, should be at existing nuclear sites up and down the country where there is already an acceptance within communities and the licensing and infrastructure is already in place.

“In that respect, the two obvious locations are in West Cumbria, where you have Sellafield, and Wylfa [where two Magnox reactors are being decommissioned].”

In Cumbria, Paul Foster, a former Sellafield executive, has co-founded Solway Community Power Company, which wants to bring SMR power stations to Cumbria backed by private investors and has selected Rolls-Royce as a designer.

He says community support is key, and argues that Sellafield has plenty because of its track record of storing hazardous waste safely for decades nearby.

“This is a community-demanded project, not one imposed upon it,” he said.

“We are sat next to one of the most hazardous nuclear facilities in the world. And it’s been a source of income, a source of benefit.”

The Government wants to make a final investment decision on which SMRs to build by 2029, although prospective bidders are hopeful that they will have a contract way before then, perhaps in the first few months of next year.

Mr Shapps said power should be generated by a new SMR “in the 2030s – I hope in the early 2030s”.

Asked whether that meant power from these projects could be 15 years away should there be any delays, he said that a mix of power sources will still be needed to supply enough green electric power.

“When the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine, you’ve got to have another option,” he said. “I think it’s wiser to bet on a mix.”

He admits that previous delays have not helped. “I am critical of what governments have done in the past. I think we should have gone with a nuclear programme in the 1990s.”

For local MP Mr Stevenson, there are plenty of areas that will welcome the work with open arms – the Government just needs to move at speed.

Potential bidders for the SMR contracts told The Telegraph that they needed urgent clarity on sites in order to raise the funds needed to begin construction.

“Nuclear power has provided a source of stable, well-paid employment for generations of families in these areas and people recognise the benefits that has brought,” Mr Stevenson said.

“What is important is that the Government now gives the private sector the confidence it needs – and ministers cannot hang around.”