Employees at Wylfa, one of the last two Magnox reactor sites to continue generating electricity, are urging the council to fully acknowledge the future development use of land next to the current power station.

In a letter to the planning service, Alan Rowlands, Prospect rep at the power station, warned that the current plan does not take sufficient account of the new generation of nuclear power plant at Wylfa, in advance of government plans to identify key sites later this year.

“The local development plan should also address now what changes the council wants to see to the local infrastructure to allow new build to happen, for example the development of port facilities, rail transport facilities, road transport etc. It will be too late to wait until the government finally clears the nuclear new build planning agenda.”

The union’s comments are particularly pertinent in the light of recent news that RWE npower now has the go-ahead for grid connections to feed 3.6GW of electricity into the national grid and has acquired options to buy farmland at Wylfa, which the union cited as “the most positive sign yet that new build will happen on Anglesey.”

Wylfa currently employs 650 people, including over 200 Prospect engineers, managers and specialists. It is owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and managed by EnergySolutions.