Bill Coley, Chief Executive of British Energy, has welcomed the Government's leadership for the development of new nuclear build in the UK following the first meeting of the recently created Nuclear Development Forum hosted by Business Secretary John Hutton.

He commented: "This meeting illustrated the Government's leadership and commitment to nuclear new build in the UK. BERR are demonstrating a clear understanding of the commercial realities that will drive the new build programme. Although much remains to be done, that commitment is being backed with action and the key issues - such as site selection criteria, technology assessment, the supply chain, skills, waste and decommissioning and the regulatory framework - are being addressed with an appropriate level of urgency.

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"The establishment of the Office of Nuclear Development will provide a dedicated office with a clear remit to take forward delivery of nuclear new build.

"The Government has also published a consultation on the criteria to be considered under the Strategic Siting Assessment programme. Within British Energy we are continuing with our land and marine surveys to establish robust baseline data and inform the scope of the environmental impact assessment required to support planning submissions. Once the final site assessment criteria are published early next year, we intend to nominate a number of our sites which meet these criteria.

"We are continuing our extensive dialogue with local stakeholders, especially the communities around our sites to keep them fully appraised of our work and to hear their input. More than 250 local people came along to consultation meetings we hosted in the villages around Sizewell in August. We will be holding similar meetings at our other southern sites in the coming months."

(CD/JM)