Sizewell B nuclear power station has been turned back on following the completion of £60million-worth of routine maintenance and refuelling work.

The station is brought offline every 18 months with a third of the fuel replaced in the reactor and thousands of maintenance jobs carried out.

Paul Morton, Sizewell B station director, said: “An additional 1,000 specialist workers joined the station’s 525 employees to carry out the work which represented a £60m investment at the site.

“Refuelling outages are always busy periods for us and for the area so I would like to thank all our neighbours in the local community for their support and patience over this period.”

This year’s refuelling outage was a slightly longer than normal to allow repairs to steam generators, which was successfully completed.

Contracts were awarded to dozens of firms including JT Pegg & Sons in Aldeburgh and LEC Marine in Lowestoft.