UK government ministers could give the go-ahead to the new Sizewell C nuclear power station in Suffolk, eastern England, within weeks, according to reports.

Prime minister Keir Starmer is expected to give the final approval to begin construction of Britain’s second new nuclear power project in a generation, at a Franco-British summit next month.

The final approval for Sizewell C, first reported by the Financial Times, would mark the end of a 15-year bid by successive governments to secure investment for the planned two 1,630-MW units, to be supplied by France’s state power company EDF, since the site was first earmarked for new nuclear development in 2010.

According to reports, the government is understood to be in the final stages of securing billions of pounds of investment from the private sector to back the project, which follows the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant, which is under construction in Somerset, southwest England.