GIANT boilers from Berkeley Power Station are to make their way to Sweden for recycling.

The five 310-tonne boilers, each measuring 21.3 metres by 5.3 metres, will make the journey sometime during the end of March.

Since the nuclear plant stopped operations in 1989 the boilers, of which there are 15 in total, had been left on site.

However, Magnox has teamed up with Studsvik, a metal treatment company based in Sweden and ALE, a heavy lift company, to remove five of them.

The boilers will be manoeuvred onto low-bed lorries and transported by road from the power station through Berkeley town to Sharpness Docks, where they will be put on a barge and taken to Portbury Docks.

Once all five have arrived at Portbury they will be put on a ship for Sweden.

Nigel Kitt, from ALE, said the four-mile journey from Berkeley Nuclear Power Station to Sharpness Docks will cause some disruption.

The expected three-hour journey will have to take place during the day, avoiding rush hour.

He said: "There is some street furniture that needs to be removed and we have been assured by experts that we can get round the roundabout."

There will be no on-street parking through Berkeley and the bollards at Market Place and Cannonbury Street, as well as the road signs, will have to be removed.

Mr Kitt said telephone lines would also be a problem.

He said: "We have talked with the telephone companies and utilities. They will inform customers in due course of the issues."

He added: "We will have BT crews dismantling as we go but as we go through a team will be behind us reconnecting."

To begin with the team will transport one boiler, then the other four will be moved in pairs. The removals will take place over several days.

Penny Wride, chairman of the Berkeley Site Stakeholder Group, said: "It will be exciting to see the boilers moved. It is the ultimate recycling project."

Once in Sweden the boilers will be decontaminated and melted. Up to 95 per cent of the boiler will be suitable for recycling and the remaining five per cent will be shipped back to the UK and stored at the Low Level Waste Repository in Drigg.

Steve McNally, Berkeley site director for Magnox, said the company had asked for tenders to come forward to dispose of the remaining 10 boilers.