In a move that signals fresh commitment for Berkeley's role in a new era of nuclear production, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt's Spring Budget announced a deal for Great British Nuclear to buy Oldbury Power Station from Gloucester-based Horizon Nuclear Power.

The Oldbury site has been long championed by the Western Gateway Partnership as part of a vision for a Low Carbon Energy Park – but the move is not likely to gain wholesale approval in the county.

Now owned by Hitachi, Horizon, which owns Wylfa, in North Wales, and Oldbury, suspended its nuclear development programme in 2019. In the deal revealed yesterday, the government will now take the sites off Horizon's hands for £160m and make the Oldbury site, close to Gloucestershire's border, a test bed for developing a new generation of small modular reactors (SMRs).

The £160m agreement was heralded by South Gloucestershire Council (SGC) as a "major step forward for the Severn Edge Low Carbon Energy Park", which is a twin-site project that also includes the former nuclear production facility at Berkeley.

Cllr Mark Hawthorne, Leader of Gloucestershire County Council and Vice-Chair of the Western Gateway added: "This is exactly what the Western Gateway's Severn Edge Vision was designed to enable. Our vision is of a site which can help develop new skills and clean energy jobs powered by a boost of investment into our communities."

As reported previously, it is anticipated that Berkeley's focus will be on skills and training for this new chapter in nuclear power production.

An SGC spokesperson said: "The site at Oldbury has been long championed by the Western Gateway partnership as part of a vision for a Low Carbon Energy Park. This vision brings together local authorities, landowners and businesses to champion net-zero technology, green jobs and new skills at the Severn Edge sites in Oldbury and Berkeley."

A single Small Modular Reactor (SMR) has been estimated to be able to power one million homes for 60 years whilst a UK wide rollout could create 40,000 new jobs, although that figure is contested in the energy industry.

Furthermore, reaction in Gloucestershire is not likely to be all applause. In a recent interview on plans to resurrect nuclear, Dale Vince, the owner of Stroud-based green energy supplier Ecotricity, said: "It (nuclear energy) is much more expensive. It eats tens of billions of more public money than renewables have. And we will do it for a very long time because we have to actually deal with the radioactive waste as well."

As the leading group on Stroud District Council, Green councillors have also stated their concern for any investment in nuclear. In a recent letter to Stroud MP Siobhan Baillie, they wrote: "Nuclear power is the only major energy technology that has increased in cost in the last decade and routinely suffers from massive time and budget overruns."

While clean renewables continue to becoming more reliable and efficent, they added: "The government's priorities should be improving the energy efficiency of homes through better insulation, and speeding up approval of renewable electricity projects."

However, Claire Young, Leader of South Gloucestershire Council and Board Member of the Western Gateway said Oldbury had long been identified in national policy as suitable for new nuclear, clean energy generation.

She added: "This announcement of investment in making that a reality is very welcome. This will help our journey to net zero and we would expect this project to create significant numbers of high-quality education, training, skills and employment opportunities for local people in the construction, R&D and running of any new facilities.

"South Gloucestershire Council has been working with the Western Gateway and partners to create a shared low carbon energy park vision linking Oldbury & Berkeley as 'Severn Edge' which has seen Rolls Royce SMR recently announced as a consortium partner in Berkeley. This announcement is a significant next step in realising our collective vision for energy generation, skills and innovation."

Today's news follows a recent £10m investment of a Consortium led by Chiltern Vital Group including Rolls Royce SMR and University of Bristol at the Berkeley Science and Technology Park.

As the second part of the Severn Edge sites, Berkeley will aim to encourage connected training, skills, nuclear and low carbon energy innovation, SGC said.

● The Western Gateway is the pan-regional partnership for South Wales and Western England, bringing together local leaders, business and academia to create economic growth and reach net zero. The Partnership published the Severn Edge Vision earlier this year and has been working with landowners and local authorities to promote investment in these sites.