Commenting on the Nuclear Development Forum meeting this morning, a quarterly meeting of industry stakeholders and Government chaired by Minister of State for the DECC, Rt Hon Charles Hendry MP, director general of the Institution of Civil Engineers Tom Foulkes said:

“Momentum is really picking up for this crucial programme; there is much less uncertainty and a real feeling of progress dominated today’s meeting. This is in part likely to be a response to the Government’s first ever National Infrastructure Plan, revealed this week, which rightly highlighted energy security as of one of the top priorities.

“Nuclear will be an undeniably important part of this mix and there is no reason why this programme can’t be delivered on time successfully, guaranteeing the UK a low carbon energy supply in future. However this does require the Government to remove the obstacles to private investment through providing an efficient planning system, ensuring the regulatory environment is stable and driving forward the development of the nuclear planning statements.”

Engineering the Future (EtF), with support from the Office for Nuclear Development, launched a report at today’s forum that aims to enable Government, developers, and the supply chain to deliver the UK new build programme without delay and as efficiently as possible. It looks to other recent new build projects in Europe and Asia and amalgamates the common lessons learnt in the process.