By Maggie Hartford MORE than 130 staff at Harwell have been told their business is to shut down over the next three years.

They are employed by AEA Technology, itself the subject of a takeover bid by an unnamed buyer.

The employees work in a radioactively shielded building, and carry out safety work on nuclear fuel as well as making radioactive isotopes for medical diagnosis.

Before the takeover bid, the company had already announced that it wanted to sell its Nuclear Technology business, which employs the 130 people.

Spokesman Andrew Strange said the decision was taken for commercial reasons and was not linked to the sell-off.

He said: "We hope to transfer the staff to other parts of the business. Voluntary redundancy may be available on an individual basis.

"We want to emphasise that this is no reflection whatsoever on the staff - they are an extremely productive group of people. It's down to market conditions."

He said a static market, over-capacity, cost pressure from customers and greater regulatory costs were contributory factors.

He added: "We remain committed to Harwell, where we have major bases for our environment and engineering software businesses."

Engineering Software's 150 Harwell staff recently moved into a £4m headquarters custom-built by ProLogis Developments.

They previously operated from several buildings on the Harwell site, but these are now old and one, Hangar 8, is due to be demolished.

AEA Technology, privatised in 1996, has moved away from the nuclear market into providing general science services for a wide range of industries.