ENVIRONMENTALISTS have welcomed proposals to dismantle and clean up atomic power station in an accelerated twenty-five year timescale.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has launched its strategy document for consultation with a key recommendation for "prompt" decommissioning of Magnox reactor sites such as Oldbury and Berkeley, bringing them to greenfield status 25 years after closure.

The proposal overturns the previous so-called "safestore" plan to leave the reactors in situ for 80 to 125 years.

The NDA says the faster timescale will bring important environmental benefits including removing the burden on future generations, removing the hazard earlier and utilises the skills of the existing workforce.

Authority chief executive Sir Anthony Cleaver said prompt decommissioning had multiple benefits and was the preferred approach.

"We believe, based on experience in other countries, it ought to be possible to complete the decommissioning of these stations over a 25-year period," he said.

"We want to achieve decommissioning and clean-up more quickly, more cost effectively, more safely and in a more environmentally-friendly manner."

The consultation document says that site clearance at Oldbury could be achieved before 2033 and puts the latest cost estimates for decommissioning at £1.4billion.

Discussions are curreently underway with regulators over plans for dealiong with the station's silt lagoons.

South Gloucestershire Friends of the Earth spokesman Tony Harding said: " A faster clean up makes a lot of sense and it's difficult to do anything else but welcome it.

"However, the massive clean-up costs are obviously a concern and that's an issue which shouldn't be forgotten when people talk of building new nuclear power stations."

"The problems at Oldbury are such that it's our view that closure should be brought forward in any case."

Jim Duffy, from the Shut Oldbury group, said: "We welcome the sea-change in thinking that seems to have occured regarding decommissioning. We have campaigned hard for this for several years and are delighted to hear our own approach now reflected so unambiguously by the NDA."

Cleaning up the legacy within a generation was the correct thing to do, he said.

"Leaving the radioactive reactor hulks dormant for a century would have left them to the vaguaries of the environment and terrorism, landing our great grand-children with a problem not of their making."

During the consultation period, which ends on November 11, NDA staff will be hosting meetings and events to explain its thinking and answer questions. This will include the first National Stakeholders Group meeting in October as well as presentations to 20 Site Stakeholder Groups around the UK.

The draft decommissioning and clean-up strategy will be submitted to government before the end of 2005.