EDF clause could delay nuclear building programme

The construction of new nuclear plants could be delayed beyond 2020 under a clause that allows EDF to sit on key sites until 2011.

A clause in the energy giant’s £12.5bn offer document for the purchase of British Energy allows it to block the sale of any of its sites until 2011 or until it has planning consent for its two preferred options.

EDF wants to build four reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset and Sizewell in Suffolk.

It wants to sell land at the three other sites it controls – Wylfa in Anglesey, Bradwell in Essex and either Heysham in Lancashire or Dungeness in Kent - to rival developers.

E.On warned the clause could block the development of new plants and slow down its own building programme “quite markedly”, reported the Times.

An E.On spokesman told the newspaper: “It is not a move that will enable rapid construction of new stations.”