The “exciting” next steps towards securing new nuclear energy at a power station have been revealed by council bosses.

Folkestone and Hythe District Council (FHDC) is working with Kent County Council (KCC), with both authorities planning to press the government for Dungeness on the Romney Marsh to join a list of new sites.

It comes after Chancellor Jeremy Hunt last month announced the “Great British Nuclear” scheme - reclassifying nuclear power as “environmentally sustainable”, reducing the costs of generating it to produce 25% of the UK’s electricity by 2050.

Documents for FHDC’s cabinet meeting on Thursday, April 20 tell of how the councils have already discussed with Small Modular Reactor (SMR) provider Rolls Royce and Advanced Modular Reactor providers EDF, Natural England and the Nuclear Industry Authority (NIA).

The papers say the aim is “bringing forward a proposition for Dungeness to generate power as quickly as possible”.

The report adds the councils will aim to “set some high-level criteria around site use, scale and potential for the site”.

This will also see work with landowners EDF to “develop high level proposals for Dungeness” and the “potential technologies” which could feature there.

The councils will then have to establish test criteria around “environmental restrictions; phasing of new nuclear on site alongside decommissioning activity; community engagement and support; economic impact and commercial viability internally and with a range of partners”.

This would pave the way to speak to government departments and agencies to get the proposals approved by industry regulation.

Asked his feelings about the proposition, FHDC leader David Monk (Con) described the scheme as “absolutely exciting”.

“The power station is an economic driver for the district,” he added.

“So the idea is to encourage the government to allow some small modular reactors to be fitted on one of the sites, probably the A-site [the first power station to be built at Dungeness].

“Overall the Romney Marsh is very nuclear tolerant. After all, a whole load of them helped build the place and a whole load of them work there.

“So it seems to me a very sensible thing to do to encourage the government to look on us kindly.”

Dungeness Power Station, on Romney Marsh, consists of two power plants - Dungeness A was in the 1960s and Dungeness B added during the 1970s and 1980s.

Dungeness A stopped producing power in 2006, was defuelled in 2012, and demolition of parts of the building began in 2015.

The second plant, Dungeness B, began generating electricity in 1983. It was meant to shut down in 2008, but after several technical issues, in 2015 its planned lease of life was extended to 2028.

However, in 2021 after further technical issues highlighted by the Office for Nuclear Regulation, French state-owned energy giant EDF, which runs the power plant, declared it would start defueling immediately.

The decommissioning of nuclear power plants - which involves defueling, decontamination and ‘care and maintenance’ of plants - is the responsibility of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, and takes decades in total.

“I’m old enough to remember when we paid a little bit more for our electricity so nuclear stations could be built so we’d have bountiful electricity in the future,” Cllr Monk said.

“Whilst I’m in favour of renewables, [this issue of] when you can get them that’s the problem. They aren’t consistent; we really do need an energy backup.”

Cllr Monk says the joint FHDC/KCC committee will play an “enabling role and an encouraging role,” and will meet with government and officials of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to lobby for Dungeness being considered as a site for future nuclear power in the UK.

“If there’s competition for these power stations up and down the country then we want to be at the forefront of it.

“We need infrastructure and nuclear power is part of the infrastructure.

“Even a small modular reactor is going to take a while to build and a lot of money to build... while you’re doing that you could be providing renewable energy...”

“Everywhere you look the future needs more power, so what’s not to want?”

However, other councillors sitting at FHDC disagree.

Cabinet member Lesley Whybrow (Green), said: “My big worry with it is what happens with the nuclear waste afterwards.

“We don’t have a permanent, safe solution in this country, so that’s probably my biggest concern.

“Because it’s radioactive for tens of thousands of years it really needs to be stored deep underground,” the outgoing Green leader who is not re-standing in May’s elections, said.

Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are a proposed class of fission reactors, which are physically smaller and faster to construct than conventional nuclear reactors.

Rolls Royce began work on a SMR design in 2015, and the company says it “expects to receive UK regulatory approval” for the design by mid-2024, and wants to roll out the 470-megawatt atomic generators for use in the UK’s energy system.

Cllr Whybrow added: “Even a small modular reactor is going to take a while to build and a lot of money to build, my view is that while you’re doing that you could be providing renewable energy, you could be providing green jobs for retrofitting houses.”

“What we should be doing is retrofitting far more houses and reducing the amount of energy we need, and that is really where I think we should be focusing our time and our money, rather than looking for more sources of energy, just trying to reduce the amount we use.”

“I think it’s pretty unlikely that we’ll end up with one and I think it’s just raising false hopes really.”