NUCLEAR industry chiefs planning the shut down of Oldbury atomic power station in four years time have vowed to be open and honest with the community about the dramatic changes at the Severnside plant.

Oldbury's two 1960s Magnox nuclear reactors will cease generating electricity in December, 2008, when the station will be 40 years old.

Throwing the off-switch will mark the start of an extensive period of decommissioning which will see the current workforce of around 400 being gradually being reduced and the contaminated site one day being returned to farmland - although that could take as long as 100 years.

The big wind-down will start with nuclear fuel - accounting for around 99 percent of all radioactive materials on the site - being removed to the Sellafield reprocessing plant in Cumbria.

Remaining intermediate and low level waste will be stored on site - probably in a specially constructed facility between the two reactors - in bombproof stainless less drums, filled with concrete.

Newly formed nuclear clean-up firm British Nuclear Group - set up by power station operators British Nuclear Fuels - will be tendering for the long-term decommissioning contract from the Nuclear Decommission Authority which is set to take over ownership and liabilities of the ageing UK Magnox stations.

Bill Root, head of programme innovation, said safety and environmental protection would remain paramount.

The group expected to win the contract for running Oldbury up to the date of shut-down, he said.

"Pretty soon after that the NDA will be putting the decommissioning contact out for competition and we want to win it," he said. "We have a proud record and we are not going to compromise safety at Oldbury simply because we are going through a time of change. Safety and profitability are not mutually exclusive."

Indeed, he said, it would be their proven track record on safety which would help guarantee that the firm clinched the clean-up contract in the face of competition from other operators.

"We plan to be open and honest with the community about what goes on," Mr Root told community representatives at a business breakfast meeting atTortworth Court Four Pillars Hotel.

"Sadly, since September 11, we have been unable to have members of the public on site looking around in the way we used to and our policy is now based on outreach into the local community"

The gathering heard that after shut-down some low-level waste would continue to be destroyed in an unfiltered incinerator whose use has long been condemned by anti nuclear campaigners.

Guests arriving at the hotel on Monday were met by South Gloucestershire Friends of the Earth member Edward Courteney brandishing a placard warning of the incinerator's use at Oldbury less than six miles away.

Station head of physics and chemistry Alison Chapman confirmed that incineration would continue right through until the creation of a "safe store" in around 2026.

Atmospheric emissions met strict Environment Agency limits, she said, and ash from combustion was removed for safe disposal elsewhere. Installing filters would only create further radioactive material for long term storage.

Northavon MP Steve Webb said there should be no question of anyone else running Oldbury in the run-up to closure.

"I have my own concerns about competition for the running of a nuclear power site," he said. "I believe it would be scandalous if anyone else but the current operators were to run the station. The people who know this plant like the back of their hand should see it through right to the close."