THE company that owns Berkeley’s nuclear power station has revealed details of a potential revision to their waste strategy which could save taxpayers more than £200 million – with around £25 million coming from Berkeley alone.

Magnox Ltd held a meeting with members of the Berkeley Site Stakeholder Group (SSG) on Thursday, February 12, to discuss new proposals for the management of intermediate level waste (ILW).

The previous strategy was to put ILW in strong metal boxes, but Magnox are now looking at equally strong concrete boxes which are both larger and cheaper.

During 2013 and 2014 Magnox engaged with a range of stakeholders, including regulators, local authorities and SSG members, on options for management of ILW and fuel element debris across Magnox sites in England.

A number of options were developed but held off until the new parent body organisation Cavendish Fluor Partnership took ownership of Magnox in September 2014.

Though still very much early days, last week’s shareholders meeting showed a positive start to proceedings.

Chairing the meeting was Penny Wride, of Stone. She discussed how the development of the university technical college on the Berkeley site by South Gloucestershire and Stroud College was a prominent focus of the meeting.

She said: “At the moment it’s still in the early stages of consultation, and, with safety being the most important thing, all these topics still have to be reviewed by regulators. Any decision we make now is subject to change.

“The purpose of having the meeting was to talk about consensus; what might be acceptable to the community might not be acceptable to the regulators.

“It was really more of a workshop discussing points of view. The main consensus was that the college going forward has to be our priority, because it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to the area. We don’t want to do anything that the college wouldn’t be happy with.”

Another suggestion put forward by Magnox is that further savings could be made if the Berkeley store was used for small quantities of waste from other sites, avoiding the cost of building other stores.

Despite the exciting figures, Ms Wride was keen to keep an open mind.

"Everyone realises that this is part of an ongoing process," she said.

"We've supplied Magnox with a list of questions so hearing back from that will be the next step.

"We want to make sure we don't cause any controversy until we've got more details."

The regulatory bodies involved are the Office for Nuclear Regulation, the Environment Agency and the National Decommissioning Authority.

Any changes will need planning permission and statutory planning consultation before final decisions are made.