THE year 2009 marks 20 years since Berkeley Nuclear Power station became the first commercial site in the UK to begin the decommissioning process. JAYNE BENNETT takes a tour around the Magnox South site to see just how times have changed.

THE town of Berkeley has long been assured of its place in the nation’s history books. However, take the road out of Berkeley, past the famous castle and the Jenner Museum and on towards the banks of the River Severn, another important edifice looms on the horizon – Berkeley Power Station, the first commercial nuclear power plant to be built in the UK.

Berkeley started generating power in 1962, but this is not the only ‘first’ for the Berkeley site – it is also the first commercial nuclear power station in the UK to be decommissioned, a process which began in 1989 and has been continuing ever since.

Decommissioning such an important site is a long process – it is expected to be around 100years before the site can truly be left to its own devices.

At its peak, the site, which covers 27hectares bordering the Berkeley Estate, was generating a combined output of 276 MW; enough electricity to serve an urban area the size of Bristol.

However, nowadays the buildings are already unrecognisable from those which at one time employed 540 staff, many of whom were local.

The top floor of the reactor building has been removed and the glass windows have been covered in cladding. But the heavy security that surrounds the site is testament to the power it still wields.

"Communication is very important to us," says Dave Brown, my guide for the day.

Dave first came to the power station as an engineer in 1971 and worked his way up through the ranks to shift charge engineer before he retired in 1998, although the lure of the station pulls him back in to take visitors –like me – on tours around the premises.

"We need to be transparent, to let people know what’s going on down here and that it’s safe.

"People forget that we’re only human, too, and we wouldn’t want to be here if there was any danger."

"Safety is paramount. At one point, when we were removing the cooling ponds, we had the largest scaffolded/tented area in Europe."

The cooling pond has now been completely filled in, as has the former sub station.

"The regulator has no interest in what was there, now," says Dave, as we enter the reactor building, "It’s completely clean."

"We are aiming to put the reactors into safe store, when both reactors can be left for 4/5years and the rest of the building coming under a period safety review, once every 10 years."

There is an eerie sensation as our footsteps echo along the now deserted corridors of the reactor building that were once full of equipment, cables and machinery.

"Most of it has been recycled," says Dave, "we’re a very green company in that respect. About £2.3M worth of plant – 24,000 tons of scrap - has already been recycled.

"The fuel rods – blocks of graphite containing the fuel element of Magnesium Alloy (magnox) – were stripped down and uranium sent to Sellafield where it is recycled. The graphite and magnox itself has gone into deep vaults."

The decision to close the station was taken on economic grounds.

"With hindsight, we probably could have kept the place running for a few more years, but we’ve moved on now," says Dave.

"With all the other types of energy available we need to be sensible and have a good mix: wave energy, tidal energy, solar energy - they’re all there to be harnessed."

So what next for the power station? "Quiet, dormant and quiescent – that’s the way we want to keep it," says Dave.

It will take decades of monitoring and maintainance and eventually all plants, including the reactor vessels, will be low enough in activity to be dismantled using conventional technology but in the meantime, Magnox South will keep on quietly working towards the ultimate goal of returning the site, clean and safe, to the people of Berkeley.