More nuclear power plants are set to be approved across England and Wales as part of the Government’s Plan for Change.

The Government is promising that its reforms to planning rules will clear a path for SMRs and comes after changes such as the scrapping of the three-strike rule for judicial reviews on infrastructure projects, and application of ‘common-sense’ to environmental rules.

The plan to shake up planning rules should make it easier to build nuclear across the country and includes putting mini-nuclear power stations in planning rules for the first time, scrapping the set list of eight sites in favour of allowing SMRs to be built anywhere across England and Wales, removing the expiry date on nuclear planning rules and setting up a Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce to spearhead improvements to the regulations.

Great British Nuclear also continues to progress the small modular reactor competition, with contract negotiations currently underway.

---