'˜Nuclear fiasco' fury amid fears over Fylde jobs

The Sellafield nuclear plant in Seascale, Cumbria, near to where a planned Â£10 billion power plant is to be built at Moorside

And it has called on the Government to get involved as nuclear jobs in Lancashire and Cumbria are at stake.

Toshiba – one of the major financial backers of the project – has warned of £7bn annual losses.

The Japanese company finally released its third quarter results after twice delaying them.

Toshiba made the unusual move of releasing the details without them being signed off by auditors.

It warned: “Events and conditions… raise substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern.”

It is the latest in a long line of setbacks for the power station, which is set to be built in Cumbria and deliver seven per cent of the UK’s electricity from 2025.

French investors Engie walked away from the deal, prior to which Toshiba’s US arm Westinghouse, which is producing reactors for Moorside, filed for bankruptcy.

Westinghouse has the Springfields site at Salwick, and there are fears the loss of Moorside could be a blow as it was due to supply nuclear fuel for the new power stations.

Justin Bowden, GMB national secretary, said: “We are fast running out of adjectives to describe this ridiculous pantomime surrounding Toshiba and its involvement in the UK’s vital and much-needed new nuclear plant at Moorside As monumental cock ups go it’s hard to imagine a worse energy-related one in recent times.

“This should an abject lesson to any government of any political persuasion as to why foreign companies and foreign investors should not be left with the responsibility of keeping the country’s lights on and economy working.

“The key question now is what the hell the UK government is doing to take control of the situation?”

Unite, Britain’s largest trade union, said it was fearful about what the latest developments at Toshiba would mean for the Moorside plant.