There is no increased risk of cancer around Oldbury nuclear power station, a health expert has assured the atomic plant's neighbours.

Dr Julia Verne said overall rates of cancer in the area were in fact falling and told a community event she was confident the station did not pose a danger to the health of residents.

Dr Verne, director of the Bristol-based South West Public Health Observatory, had been asked to Wednesday's meeting of the Oldbury Site Stakeholder Group after claims alleging a link between the station and cases of cancer were made at the last meeting of the organisation.

But she presented figures on cancer incidence and mortality that showed there was no greater-than-average hazard for those people living close to the station or in the whole of the combined South Gloucestershire and Gloucestershire area.

Dr Verne said only one of the cancer types studied – chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, which mainly affects people over the age of 70 – showed a rate significantly above the average for the South West.

But she said there was no epidemiological evidence linking that form of leukaemia to radiation and it was likely to be a chance finding.

She said: "Our statistics show there is no evidence to suggest a link between Oldbury Power Station and rates of cancer incidence and mortality in the area. I am confident the station does not pose a risk to the health of the local population."

Dr Verne's data was taken from within a five-kilometre (three-mile) and 10km (six-mile) radius of the station, near Thornbury, within five kilometres of the Severn estuary and in the area covered by South Gloucestershire and Gloucestershire counties.

She said: "The aim of the South West Public Health Observatory is to improve the health of the population in the South West. Our role is to monitor health statistics and to alert the relevant authorities when we find anything of concern. I understand people's concerns and it is natural that interest in this issue will be heightened over coming months as debates about Government proposals for nuclear power are discussed. I would like to reassure all those living in the area that we will continue to fulfil our duty and to carefully monitor cancer statistics, as well as highlight any issues that may impact on their health."

Alan Pinder, of South Gloucestershire Friends of the Earth, said studies in Germany showed there were more cases of leukaemia the closer people lived to nuclear plants. But the meeting was told childhood cancer research group in Oxford carried out its own study to replicate the German one and concluded there was no significant evidence of an elevated risk of acute leukaemia in young children near atomic sites in Britain.

Dr Verne said childhood leukaemia was known to cluster in areas that were not near nuclear installations and they could be caused by some viral exposure of which little was known.

She said the German researchers had also made clear they could not say what had caused the cases they investigated.