A beloved UK tourist attraction faces the end of its working life unless Andy Burnham steps in to reverse the government decision to pull crucial funding.

The Jodrell Bank Observatory, a Unesco World Heritage site near Macclesfield in Cheshire, is set to cease scientific work in April 2028, ending decades at the bleeding edge of British astronomy.

The observatory’s centrepiece, the Lovell Telescope, is a significant landmark, brings in thousands of visitors every year, and even serves as the backdrop to the Blue Dot music and science festival every summer.

It opened in 1957 and produced the first-ever images of the Moon’s surface. At 76m (250ft) in diameter, Lovell is the world’s largest steerable radio telescope.

The grade-I listed building played a vital role in the Cold War, standing ready to deliver a four-minute warning of nuclear apocalypse. Its days contributing to science are now numbered because Keir Starmer’s Labour government cancelled funding for the e-Merlin telescope network, reports the Manchester Evening News.

"The impact of the ending of the e-Merlin funding means that unless we find alternative funding, then from the end of March 2028, we will not be able to maintain the Lovell Telescope as a working radio facility,” explained Prof Sarah Sharples, Dean of Science and Engineering at the University of Manchester, which manages Jodrell Bank.

"The thing that has been removed as funding is the funding of maintenance of the Lovell Telescope as an active scientific instrument for radio astronomy. There are 28 people who are employed by the e-Merlin grant and the e-Merlin grant funds an array of telescopes.”

A furious MP believes the new Prime Minister needs to step in to save its important work — calling it the ‘first test’ of Burnham’s ‘promise to rebalance the country’.

Graham Stringer, a senior Labour MP who sat on the Science and Technology Select Committee for 15 years, said: “Jodrell Bank has to be saved. It has to be saveable if No 10 in the North and rebalancing the country - Andy Burnham's projects - are to survive.

“It's the first test of his promise - it's absolutely critical for his future and the north of England that he changes this.

“It was a part of the last Labour regime - Sir Keir Starmer's regime - that there has been a stripping of scientific excellence out of the north and a pushing of it into the golden triangle between Oxford, Cambridge and London."

Local MP Tim Roca, also Labour, is working on sourcing ‘alternative funding’ for the site. He said: “I will continue pressing for clarity and the best possible outcome for Jodrell Bank, its staff and the wider scientific community."

It’s understood the decision to end e-Merlin funding will not affect the future of Jodrell Bank’s engagement centre, which attracts school trips from across the country and generates £4.7m for the economy annually.

However, ending the research funding could have a knock on effect on the livelihoods of around 3,000 scientists nationwide.

The University of Manchester said it is ‘looking at the implications of this news carefully and working with our partners to secure the future of the Lovell telescope and e-Merlin’.

It’s thought the decision to axe e-Merline funding was made by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), an industry body within the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology, which was dissolved by Burnham in one of his first acts as PM.

The STFC said it had set out a 'prioritisation programme' affecting research projects in particle physics, astronomy and nuclear physics (PPAN) after budgets for those fields of study were to be cut by 2.7 percent over the next four years.

Professor Michele Dougherty, executive chair of STFC, said: "These are never easy choices, but we have made what we feel are the right decisions to bring STFC to a sustainable financial position by 2029/30.”