CHANGE is brewing at Oldbury Power Station as new owners are set to be appointed to manage the site.

Four consortiums are due to submit bids to take over the management of the plant through its decommissioning process, as well as 11 other power stations across the UK.

They are AMEC/Atkins, The Babcock Fluor Partnership, CAS Restoration Partnership and EnergySolutions/ Bechtel.

Energy Solutions currently runs the Oldbury site and other Magnox plants.

Malcolm Lynden, chairman of the Oldbury Site Stakeholder Group told members at their quarterly meeting last Wednesday that, having met all four consortiums, he felt confident any of them would make appropriate plant managers.

"The consortiums are big companies with a lot of support behind them and very good intentions," he said. "We are confident that any of the four could perform a function running the Magnox sites as a parent company."

The firms will present their bids to secure the £7 billion contract to the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency at the end of October. The independent body will then select a group to run the plants in early 2014.

Possible new ownership is not the only shift ahead for the power station, which is currently defuelling its reactors and is in the process of transitioning to its decommissioning phase.

With safety risks significantly reduced, the nuclear police which had been based at Oldbury since the power station’s inauguration will be leaving the village in the summer.

This marks a turning point for Oldbury.

Station deputy director Rob Ledger said: " Now that the site is shut down a study has shown that there is no longer a requirement to have police on site. I would like to pay them our thanks. They have been excellent neighbours."

Last month, a 170 tonne-generator transformer was moved from Oldbury Nuclear Power Station and driven to Sharpness Docks where it was dismantled before being shipped to a recycling plant.

This was the first major piece of equipment to be removed from Oldbury.

The plant is now focusing on defuelling. Reactors one and two are respectively one and 20 per cent defuelled.

Following issues last summer at a reprocessing plant in Shellafield where fuel flasks are taken for recycling, shipments resumed this year.

Yet the temporary hiatus means that the defuelling completion date at Oldbury, set for June 2015, could be pushed back, although it is unclear by how many weeks or months.

Mr Ledger added: "Our planned defuelling date remains mid-2015 although this date is under review."