South Yorkshire ready to lead small modular reactor revolution as £3 trillion prize awaits: Richard Caborn
South Yorkshire has always been at the sharp edge of British industry. Forgemasters and Davy Markham built the world’s biggest presses and mills. Harry Brearley gave us stainless steel. Our region supplied components for Concorde and the RB211 jet engine.
More recently, the AMRC – Keith Ridgway’s vision with Adrian Allen – has drawn in Boeing, Rolls-Royce and McLaren, creating high-value jobs and proving that South Yorkshire still delivers world-class engineering.
High-value manufacturing isn’t just what we do—it’s who we are.
Now, a £3 trillion global market is opening up. Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are the future of clean energy. And Britain has a choice: lead the race, or watch others take the prize.
South Yorkshire has the plan to lead. Keith Ridgway and the Advanced Forming Research Centre (AFRC) have put forward a proposal for a National SMR Manufacturing Centre of Excellence.
Backed by over 50 industrial partners, it would give the UK the capability to build and export SMRs—modules assembled here, deployed across the UK and around the world.
This isn’t theory. It’s real. Two private-sector customers are ready to order at least four British-built SMRs. No other proposal before government can say that.
But to make this happen, and absolutely fundamental to our proposal is Government support to deliver a British built - First of a Kind (FOAK) SMR, ensuring that UK manufacturing does not miss out industrially on this global nuclear renaissance. The reduction in cost due to the ‘Learning Curve’ that is the benefit and knowledge
gained from building the FOAK reactor compared to subsequent reactors is estimated to be 25 per cent.
If the FOAK is not manufactured in the UK it will be difficult for UK companies to enter the supply chain in the future.
Ed Miliband told Parliament in June: “If the private sector wants to build new nuclear, Britain is open for business.”
We have answered that challenge. The private sector is ready. South Yorkshire is ready. But government must play its part. Without support for the first British-built SMR, the UK risks losing jobs, skills and investment to competitors abroad.
We cannot repeat the mistakes of the past. Hinkley Point C is years late and billions over budget. £18 billion has become £46 billion. Delivery has become delay. Britain cannot afford that again.
SMRs are different. Factory-built. Modular. Repeatable. Cost-controlled. Driven by AI, digital twins, simulation, VR and AR. This is modern manufacturing at its best – efficient, competitive, exportable. And it can be made in the UK.
South Yorkshire is in a unique industrial position, with the £1.4 billion government investment in Forgemasters into new forging capacity and new machining capability. Davy Markham’s capacity and capability can house the construction and fabrication of the nuclear island module of any SMR.
This is not just about energy. It is about industrial sovereignty. About jobs. About proving that Britain can still deliver. The Prime Minister has set the tone: delivery, delivery, delivery.
Now it’s time to back words with action. The South Yorkshire SMR proposal is shovel-ready. The private sector is on board. All that is missing is the government’s green light.
The choice is simple: lead the nuclear renaissance – or watch from the sidelines while others take the rewards.
Richard Caborn is a former minister and Strategic Advisor to the Sheffield AFRC