Leaders of Britain’s nuclear industry have been defending the UK’s controversial Hinkley Point power Station project from claims it is over budget and could face two years delays.

Hinkley Point is being jointly financed by French energy giant EDF and China and it has been heralded as a renaissance enterprise for the UK’s nuclear industry. 

The building of the Hinkley Point plant, valued at 25 billion US dollars, is underway. However, according to the French newspaper Le Monde, the project is set to overrun its budget by up to three billion dollars. 

Claims of further overruns came as a hard-hitting report by Britain’s spending watchdog office criticized Hinkley as "risky and expensive project with uncertain strategic and  economic benefits."

But Zhu Minhong, Chief Executive at the China General Nuclear Power Corporation, working on the testing stage of a second nuclear site with EDF, said that the nuclear power is about working with local communities and the industry. 

The Hinkley reactor is based on the as yet untested technology in EDF’s Flamanville reactor in France, running six years late and set to cost three times the original estimate. 

In Britain nuclear industry leaders are confident Hinkley will ultimately prove successful. 

"I remain fundamentally optimistic that this project will go well and future nuclear projects will also learn from the experience of EDF and Hinkley, including the Chinese and we can build a really exciting new platform," said John Nutton, Chair of the UK's Nuclear Industry Association.