Jodrell Bank cuts 'a disappointing gamble'

Funding cuts to Jodrell Bank Observatory are "a gamble on the future of UK science and scientific research", a presenter of The Sky at Night has said.

The government has pulled £2.8m from the Cheshire site, which houses the third-largest steerable telescope in the world, putting 28 jobs at risk.

Dr George Dransfield, an astrophysicist who presents the BBC astronomy show, said the decision could see the UK lose its place in "big international scientific collaborations".

She said the observatory was also valuable for training young scientists who then "go on to be scientific leaders and even go into industry and support industries that are priorities for the government".

The Lovell Telescope, once the largest radio telescope in the world, is the largest part of a seven-telescope system in England known as the e-Merlin network.

Together, they can focus on objects across deep space and help researchers work out how planets and stars form and galaxies evolve, and study other space phenomena.

The observatory site, chosen by radio astronomy pioneer Sir Bernard Lovell as research base for the University of Manchester in the 1940s, is a Unesco World Heritage Site.

The UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) agency announced the £2.8m cut to the observatory's annual budget was due to rising lab and research costs.

"What's really disappointing is that it takes decades to set up this kind of infrastructure," Dransfield said, adding scientists would leave the country to work elsewhere without this kind of cutting-edge technology.

She said "no-one's arguing with the fact that budgets are finite", but the decision was short-sighted, given the UK's leading role in radio astronomy on the international stage.

The UKRI agency previously said it had to focus investment on projects that deliver "the greatest long-term impact".

The astrophysicist began presenting on The Sky At Night in 2023 and recently took part in a show about Jodrell Bank.

"Every time I get to visit there, it's such an awesome place," she said.

"You can feel not only like the history of the place, but also just what's going on still.

"It's buzzing with activity.

"There are scientists there doing amazing work."

A campaign has been launched to find alternative streams of funding to secure the site's future by 2028.

The University of Manchester, which owns the observatory, said it was committed to ensuring scientific research continues there.

Henri Murison, the chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, told the BBC that "eminent physicists have made the case for why this is particularly worrying, because it will lose physics talent across the country".

"I think the question we have to ask the funding councils... is what is the North West going to get in terms of wider investment into innovation and diffusion because this is a relatively small amount of money?"

Jonathan Reynolds, who is the new Secretary of State in the expanded business department that now has responsibility for science, told BBC News that the UK's world class research was "absolutely central to creating a better future for the UK".

"I am committed to working with UKRI to ensure the UK remains able not only to sustain its world-leading research capabilities, but also to invest in the next generation of scientific facilities and infrastructure that will underpin discovery, innovation and growth in the years ahead," he added.

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