Ian Liddell-Grainger MP praises safety at Hinkley Point B

Hinkley Point B has generated zero-carbon electricity since February 1976, making it the UK's most productive nuclear power station. 

The Hinkley Point B team will undertake major maintenance and improvement projects across the plant to prepare it for defuelling. 

The defuelling process will see the remaining nuclear fuel removed from the reactors and transported to Sellafield, a Nuclear Decommissioning Authority site, for storage.

Station owner EDF will then hand the station to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

Ian Liddell Grainger MP, who represents Bridgwater and West Somerset, has congratulated Hinkley Point B's staff members for the plant's safety record over its 46-year life.

Bridgwater and West Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger. Picture: UK Parliament (Image: UK Parliament)

“The B station has had an exemplary safety record following on the high standards set by the A station,” he said.

“This is all down to the determination and dedication of a highly-skilled workforce and I congratulate them for what they have achieved.

“Apart from signed-up members of the anti-nuclear lobby, there are indeed very few of my constituents who have any misgivings about the safety of nuclear power.

“Most of them have contentedly lived with two nuclear stations on their doorstep for decades - and appear completely comfortable with the thought that nuclear generation is set to continue at Hinkley Point for many years to come.”

Hinkley Point A opened in 1965 and was switched off in 2000.

Construction on Hinkley Point C began in March 2017, and the new power station is due to be commissioned in June 2027.