A nuclear decommissioning company which manages two local sites has received eight complaints of bullying, discrimination and harassment in the space of a year, Newsquest's Data Investigations Unit can reveal.

Magnox, who manage Berkeley and Oldbury power stations as well as 10 others across the UK, received three complaints of bullying, two of sexual harassment and four for inappropriate behaviour in 2018/19.

The number of complaints is double the 2016/17 (three) and 2017/18 (one) tallies combined.

Of the twelve cases, three have resulted in complaints being lodged with the employment tribunal.

One was settled before the hearing, while the judge found in favour of the other complainant, which was for discrimination, and compensation was awarded. The hearing for the third case, also for discrimination, has yet to be held.

Magnox is a subsidiary of the Government-run Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).

The authority said it did not hold a breakdown of how much money it spent in legal fees to deal with matters referred to the employment tribunal.

Publicly available accounts show that this year the NDA paid more than half a million pounds (£580,779) to eight firms in legal fees in six months (between April and October).

An NDA spokesman said: “We actively encourage people to come forward with their concerns and we take the investigations extremely seriously. Any employee grievances, including any claims of bullying and harassment, are a concern for us and we are committed to addressing them.

“Since 2018 we have refreshed our policies and processes and carried out a series of initiatives and ‘respect at work’ training sessions - with the aim of eradicating bullying and harassment.

"Building a respectful, supportive, diverse and inclusive culture is the key to tackling bullying and harassment and making the NDA a great place to work.

“We’ve taken some important steps forward but acknowledge that there is still work to do.”