Plans for 10-year nuclear weapons factory rebuild

A plan to rebuild parts of a nuclear weapons factory over 10 years is set to be submitted to a local planning authority within months.

The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) in Aldermaston, Berkshire, will seek to replace ageing facilities with what it is calling its Future Materials Campus.

An outline planning application is expected to be submitted to West Berkshire Council this winter as part of a broader £15bn government investment into the UK's nuclear warhead programme.

AWE said it will begin preparing the site after the outline planning application is approved, with main construction work expected to start within two to three years.

The new buildings will seek to support the UK's new Astraea nuclear warhead programme.

AWE said the programme will help maintain about 9,000 jobs at AWE Aldermaston, with more than 1,500 new jobs expected later.

New office spaces, advanced manufacturing facilities and testing laboratories are expected to be amongst the improvements.

There are more than 1,200 buildings on the Aldermaston site, more than half of which were built before 1960.

In a document produced in the summer, AWE said it expects construction traffic to be "relatively low" during the first three to four years of the project.

It is then expected to hit a "peak period" about two-thirds of the way through the project. It expects that to then steadily reduce.

AWE also operates AWE Burghfield about seven miles (11.2km) away, where warheads are assembled, serviced and decommissioned.