News Corners

Engineering group Rolls Royce has secured a £400m contract to provide components and expertise to AREVA as it builds four nuclear reactors in the UK on behalf of EDF.

The work will secure 300 skilled UK jobs at Rolls Royce. Photo: ALAMY

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The UK firm will be one of several companies working on the first of two reactors built to French energy company AREVA’s EPR design at Hinkley Point in Somerset. Ultimately two more reactors will be built in the UK to the same design.

The work will secure 300 skilled UK jobs at Rolls Royce, some of which will be based at a new manufacturing facility in Rotherham where parts for the reactors will be built. Planning permission for the facility has already been granted and it is hoped that it will be up and running late next year.

Rolls Royce and AREVA initially signed a partnership agreement in March to work on nuclear projects, which has now been extended to cooperate on manufacturing power plant components for reactors around the world.

AREVA is also expected to sign a seperate £100m contract for preliminary work at the nuclear reactors, including clearing the ground and excavation.

David Cameron, who travelled to Paris today to meet his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy, said that the deal would see “1,500 new jobs in the UK, £100m invested across the South West and a brand new factory in Rotherham in South Yorkshire.”