UK government drops Severn barrage project, clears eight nuclear plants

The UK government has dropped a 'green electricity'' project that involved building a 10-mile barrage across the Severn estuary, the Guardian newspaper revealed yesterday.

According to an official study a "strategic case" had not been made for the more than £30 billion investment in the scheme although it said it could be reconsidered as a long-term option.

Meanwhile, the department of energy and climate change has given the go ahead to new nuclear power plants at eight sites: Bradwell, Essex; Hartlepool; Heysham, Lancashire; Hinkley Point, Somerset; Oldbury, South Gloucestershire; Sellafield, Cumbria; Sizewell, Suffolk and Wylfa, Anglesey.

The coalition government has already said it would allow companies to set up new nuclear plants, provided no public subsidy was involved. This comes even with the Liberal Democrats' opposition to new nuclear power stations.

All the new plants will come up in vicinity of existing nuclear power plants. Sites at Dungeness in Kent, Braystones and Kirksanton in Cumbria – were ruled out.

The announcement of the sites comes as part of  a package aimed at providing certainty for the industry, which included more detail on what would be required in terms of clean-up and the government's policy of no subsidies.