OLDBURY power station could be the perfect site for green power production after its nuclear reactors are shut down, according to energy-conscious local councillors.

Local consultation is already underway on the station's potential reuse following decommissioning in 2008.

Now South Gloucestershire Council is being urged to step in to champion tidal and marine current power generation on the site.

Pilning and Severn Beach councillor Peter Tyzack (Lib Dem) said a new plant producing cheap electricity from Severn tides must be seriously considered.

Climate change meant there was an urgent need to explore local opportunities for producing energy.

"There are around 350 jobs at stake when Oldbury power station finally closes and that will leave a large hole in our community," he said.

"The infrastructure is already there to export energy away from the site. While we acknowledge that there may be some who will want to return the land to the green belt, it makes sense to explore other options to ensure the best options are offered both to the local community and to the wider population.

"To put in the sort of infrastructure required to transport energy into the national grid is extremely costly and it would be nonsense to waste this opportunity. To investigate the creation of jobs within sustainable and renewable energy technologies, which is an emerging and increasingly essential sector of the energy production market, makes economic as well as environmental sense."

Cabinet members at now being urged to order a full report on Oldbury's green energy potential, write to the government and to local and regional MPs and MEPs and to "champion and promote" the idea.

Councillors also expressed concern at the Government's failure to go further and faster on energy efficiency, renewables, decentralised energy generation and other cleaner, sustainable energy technologies, including clean coal and carbon capture and storage.