ANGRY workers protested outside the UK Atomic Energy Authority site at Winfrith over funding cuts.

They fear more than 100 jobs will be lost if £85 million annual funding for Winfrith and Oxfordshire sister site Harwell for 2007-2008 is cut to just £60 million for 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 with Winfrith's funding being cut from £44.3 million to only £15.4 million.

The workers, represented by the Prospect union, also fear that the cutback will slow down the clean-up of the former nuclear site at Winfrith as well as leaving skilled workers discarded at a time when there are shortages of specialists to clean up nuclear sites.

Prospect national secretary David Luxton said: "It is unacceptable to put so many nuclear scientists under threat of redundancy at the very time there is concern in government about the shortage of skilled nuclear workers to implement the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority's decommissioning strategy.

"UKAEA were planning to accelerate the decommissioning of Winfrith back to a brownfield site by 2013. Now this plan is under threat because of the unexpected slashing of the decommissioning budget for both the Winfrith and Harwell sites.

"The Government's plans for nuclear build will be in disarray unless there is adequate funding to implement the accelerated decommissioning. The cut-backs are a false economy. This is not joined-up government."

Prospect added that it is considering balloting its members in UKAEA for industrial action over the cuts and was pressing the Government for an urgent meeting to discuss the funding crisis at Winfrith and Harwell.