Unemployment blow may leave more needing debt management plans

One way in which some consumers can find themselves needing a debt management plan is to spend some time out of work and that may now apply to some workers at the Sellafield nuclear complex in Cumbria.

Many people who are able to fund their repayments on loans and credit cards and pay the bills without slipping into unauthorised overdrafts may only be able to do so as long as they have money coming in, so there could be a bleak future ahead for hundreds of workers heading for the exit with the closure of the MOX plant.

The facility takes reprocessed plutonium and turns it into mixed oxide fuel for reactors, but Sellafield has revealed it will now close because it is no longer commercially viable.

This is due to demand being set to fall from Japanese customers in the wake of the near-meltdown at Fukushima after the plant's reactor cooling system was damaged by the tsunami in March.

Events like Fukushima have left question marks over the nuclear industry as a whole and there have long been many people campaigning for Sellafield and other UK nuclear establishments to shut.

But for employees, a loss of employment could have dire consequences, not least in a region like west Cumbria where geographical isolation could leave them short of alternatives.

Located near the coast to the west of the Lake District, the Sellafield site has been in operation since 1956, when the first ever commercial power station – Calder Hall – came into operation.

By James Francis