Sizewell C: Decision on nuclear power plant due

The planned Sizewell C plant is expected to cost about £20bn

A decision on whether to approve the building of a new £20bn nuclear power plant is due later.

The government was expected to make an announcement about the application for Sizewell C in Suffolk two weeks ago.

Business minister Paul Scully said he had "set a new deadline of no later than 20 July for deciding this application".

"This is to ensure there is sufficient time to allow the secretary of state to consider the proposal," he said.

The government was previously due to announce a planning decision by 25 May, but it said it needed more time to look at new information and it set a new deadline of 8 July.

Sizewell C, on the right, would be built next to Sizewell B, centre, which is still generating, and Sizewell A, far left, which operated until 2006 and is being decommissioned

French energy company EDF hopes to build a two-reactor nuclear power station on the coast at Sizewell.

It said the plant would generate 3.2 gigawatts (GW) of electricity, enough to provide 7% of the UK's needs.

It could power the equivalent of about six million homes and would generate electricity for 60 years, the firm said.

The project has been estimated to cost about £20bn.

The government has committed £100m to developing the project and planned to take a 20% stake in the plant.

• What is Sizewell C and where is it planned to be?

• Campaigners knock government over Sizewell figures

• Government to take 20% stake in new nuclear plant

Those opposed to nuclear power have argued that expanding the sector would be slow and expensive.

Campaigners also said, closer to a nature reserve than the existing power plants, could endanger more than 6,000 species.

In response to the two-week delay, Alison Downes of Stop Sizewell C, said it "would have been farcical if a decision on Sizewell C" had been made earlier.

Sizewell C would be built just south of RSPB Minsmere