Sellafield Job losses Friday Oct 8 2010

In west Cumbria, the sprawling nuclear site, more than 1.500 jobs will be cut.

By the end of this year, 570 workers would be made voluntarily redundant, 300 agency staff would also be cut. A further 650 vacancies at the plant would be left unfilled.

The plant has a workforce of 10,500. Redundancies will drawn from all levels, including administrative and operational staff, technicians and managers.

Sellafield, where Britain developed atomic weapons technology and built the world’s first civil nuclear power station – Calder Hall in 1956 – is the largest employer in Cumbria.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which owns the Sellafield site. The aauthority absorbs 40% of the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s budget, has been earmarked for steep government spending cuts.

The plant has been managed since 2008, on a £22 billion 17-year contract, by Nuclear Management Partners: a consortium of Amec, Washington Group, of the US, and Areva, of France.

Cleaning up the 262-hectare radioactive contamination site, including some of the most toxic industrial buildings in Europe, is a vast task expected to cost tens of billions and take decades to complete.