Suffolk Chamber statement on £14bn Government investment in Sizewell C

Today’s announcement of further Government funding for Sizewell C is another vote of confidence in this catalytic energy scheme. It reinforces Suffolk and, more generally, the East of England as the country’s clean energy super hub.

It is a particularly important milestone for Suffolk Chamber of Commerce, given our longstanding relationship with the project going back well over a decade through our management of the Sizewell C Supply Chain. During that time, we have helped thousands of local and regional businesses get mission ready to take advantage of the many tendering opportunities associated with nuclear new build. The results of this investment are becoming more and more apparent as increasing numbers of local firms win contracts.

In addition, we have successfully transferred that accumulated knowledge into the Suffolk Supply Chain with the aim of maximising the benefits to Suffolk’s SMEs of other infrastructure projects in and around the county.

At the same time, we are also looking to ensure that the skills and household incomes boost in Suffolk is secured over the longer term, with the Suffolk and Norfolk Chambers of Commerce-run Local Skills Improvement Plan playing a key role in locking in this positive legacy for all communities, but especially those on the coast.

However, the local and regional benefits of nationally significant projects such as Sizewell C can only be fully realised with additional investment in the surrounding infrastructure. That is why it is vital that the Government fund the Ely/Haughley junction projects to boost freight movements in and out of the county and address in a strategic manner the increasingly inadequate sub-regional roads network, including the A14 and the Orwell Bridge, the A12 and the A47 to bring them up to twenty first century standards.