About £1 million will be made available by EDF Energy to

deliver new affordable homes, due to a sharp rise in the Hinkley Point C

workforce - and none of it has been allocated to West Somerset, local

councils have been told.

Around 8,600 workers will be needed during the peak of the construction

programme on the new nuclear power station - around 3,000 more than was

originally predicted.

This will result in the expansion of existing campuses as well as an

increase in the number of pitches available at camp-sites near the power

station.

But the £995,000 to be provided for affordable housing schemes will

be spent in the Bridgwater area and in Nether Stowey, a village in the

Sedgemoor Council district, it was revealed last week.

The four local district councils, including Somerset West and Taunton,

announced last Friday (April 8) that a package of measures had been

agreed with EDF which would help to off-set the impact of construction

while ensuring the power station could meet its current target of generating

electricity by 2026.