MORE than 150 jobs are at risk after EDF announced today that it will be closing a power station in Nottinghamshire.

The French company said the coal-fired station in Cottam is “not economically viable” and is proposing to cease operations on September 30, bringing to an end more than 50 years of power generation.

EDF said that “challenging market conditions” are to blame for the loss, and added that the “drive to decarbonise electricity generation” also had a role to play in the closure of the plant.

The closure has put 158 skilled and unskilled jobs on the firing line.

Cottam plant manager Andy Powell said: “When the power station was built it was designed to operate for 30 years. It’s a credit to our people, the engineering and EDF Energy’s investment that it has operated for more than 50 years.” 

The closure has come six years earlier than trade unions expected.

The Prospect union said that the company had led it to believe the station’s operations would be wound down in 2025.

Mike MacDonald, the union’s negotiations officer, said this extra time would have given communities “plenty of time to mitigate the £60 million which will be lost from the local economy as a result.

“We need reassurances from the company and from the government that they will do all they can to minimise the impact of this closure.”

Unite national energy officer Peter McIntosh added that the union will “constructively engage with EDF management about the redeployment of the employees affected.”