SKILLED workers carrying out the painstaking task of decommissioning a nuclear site have staged a silent protest to safeguard jobs and ensure UKAEA Winfrith returns to heathland as soon as possible.

The Winfrith employees, who carried placards calling for a proposed funding cut to be re-addressed, were joined by residents at Winfrith Village Hall for the biannual site stakeholder group meeting.

Last week's gathering gave workers their first chance to let the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) know exactly how they felt about a major funding cut, that could stall Winfrith's decommissioning for a decade and cost 110 jobs.

Earlier this year NDA bosses announced the likely funding cut, for Winfrith and its sister site Harwell in Oxfordshire, of £25million a year from 2008.

Winfrith union representative Austin Kinnane said: "What we cannot understand is why this money has been taken out of the budget.

"This £25 million a year would have ensured the site is completely decommissioned by 2013 and saved more then a hundred jobs."

Budgets are not yet set in stone - the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority will find out in the next couple of months - but Mr Kinnane believes it is a done deal.

He told the Echo: "My gut feeling is this deal will stand and we will have missed a golden opportunity to show we can fully decommission a nuclear site and return the land to local people.

"Twenty five million pounds is a drop in the ocean for the decommissioning authority. People are already starting to lose jobs, being moved out voluntarily."

"We were due to finish decommissioning by 2013, but the way things are going, by next March decommissioning work will stop and the site will just be maintained.

"It could carry on just being maintained for the next 5, 10 or even 20 years."

According to the UKAEA, Winfrith, which no longer houses any high level nuclear facilities, will be fully decommissioned by 2018 and returned to non-nuclear use by 2020.

Mid Dorset and North Poole MP Annette Brooke pledged to fight to protect jobs and secure future decommissioning.