The British government must declare a national need for new nuclear power stations by the end of this year if EDF is to launch its first new generation reactor by 2017, according to senior executives of the French energy group.

EDF on Monday finalised its £12.5bn takeover of British Energy, operator of 10 UK nuclear power plants. The group plans to build four of the French-designed 1,600MW EPR reactors on British Energy sites.