Health and Safety
Executive / Commission
Nuclear
LLC reports
This report is issued as part of the Health and Safety Executive's commitment to make information about inspection and regulatory activities relating to the above site available to the public. It is for distribution to members of the Harwell Chilton Campus Local Stakeholder Group (LSG) and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at the UKAEA Harwell licensed site. These reports are distributed quarterly. Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate normally attend LSG meetings and will be happy to respond to questions raised there by members of the LSG. Any other person wishing to inquire about matters covered by this report should contact the HSE, Nuclear Directorate on 0151-951- 3484/3290
The Site Inspector made four planned visits to Harwell during the quarter. His inspections and discussions covered a number of regulatory topics including operational safety cases, delicensing an area of the licensed nuclear site, and the divestment of Waste Management Technology Ltd from AEA Technology Ltd. He participated in the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s (NDA) interim and final reviews of UKAEA’s 2006/7 Long Term Plan, and attended the Harwell Regulatory Forum.
The Site Inspector, together with his incoming Superintending Inspector and the Site Inspector for Windscale, also attended the NII/UKAEA Annual Review of Safety on the UKAEA Harwell site. He also accompanied his Superintending Inspector on part of his familiarisation visit to some of the plants.
Further information on matters of interest is provided in the following sections of this report.
As indicated in paragraphs 1 and 2 above, these covered licence condition compliance matters and other relevant safety related aspects of operations, maintenance and both technical and safety support. For the most part the inspections and discussions revealed nothing of concern and compliance was judged to be adequate. In the case of a safety case for the retrieval and processing of a number of redundant experimental rigs from storage holes in B462, UKAEA agreed to revise the case to meet NII’s requirements before proceeding with the work.
NII and the Environment Agency continued to meet with UKAEA on a monthly basis by videoconference. The meetings help maintain close contact with the site whilst reducing travel time and costs. They are not seen as a substitute for site inspection visits but they allow routine regulatory business to proceed while the Site Inspector is away from the site.
Discussions with UKAEA, that were first reported in 2005 quarter 3, continued regarding the means to facilitate an immediate evacuation of staff from the building upon hearing a fire alarm. The fire detection and alarm systems in the building together with the extant personnel access controls from the adjacent B220.24 do not immediately lend themselves to accommodating such a response. Further discussions with UKAEA in January failed to elicit sufficient details of UKAEA’s proposals for these to provide the necessary reassurances that it was doing all that was reasonably practicable to expedite the resolution of the matter. Consequently UKAEA was requested to provide by 15 March an intentions document that would identify all the necessary systematic steps required to achieve its objectives together with their various timescales. NII has received the document and will wish to ensure that the implementation date of mid June does not slip. In the mean time, UKAEA is progressing the upgrade of the fire alarm system and the necessary modification to the personnel access control arrangements in B220.
Discussions have continued regarding UKAEA’s proposal to delicense part of the current Nuclear Licensed Site. The area has been termed the pilot area because it will be the forerunner of other, early delicensing proposals, for which UKAEA will similarly have to prepare safety cases. The work is in accordance with its Life Time Plan, which has been submitted to the NDA and which charts UKAEA’s plans and strategies for its withdrawal from the Harwell site. The position regarding the pilot area has now reached the stage where NII has informed UKAEA that it is satisfied with the safety case for delicensing and is drawing up the licence variation which will be required to be granted by HSE in accordance with the Nuclear Installations Act 1965 (as amended) (the NIA). HSE’s policy and criterion to meet the NIA delicensing requirement of there being no danger from ionising radiations was explained in NII’s 2005 quarter 3 report to the LSG.
The delicensing of an area of the site reduces the overall size of the licensed site, rather than increases it, and consequently the NIA does not require public consultation by HSE before it grants the licence variation. Nevertheless, NII will be consulting with its colleagues in the Environment Agency (EA) to seek their views on whether the granting of the variation is consistent with EA’s environmental protection responsibilities and will not prejudice any legal process under the Radioactive Substances Act 1993 or other environmental legislation. In the mean time, the site inspector has discussed with UKAEA its proposed new signage and inspected the pilot area boundary to agree with UKAEA the locations of the signs, in order to ensure the boundary of the new licensed site is properly marked in accordance with the requirements of Condition 2 attached to the Nuclear Site Licence. The next stage in the process will be for NII to discuss and agree the layout of the site map that UKAEA is producing to accompany the variation. For the future, NII will wish to complete the delicensing of the pilot area and to commence consideration of the safety case for the second delicensing proposal, which is termed the North Gate Area. A third area, termed the Eastern Facilities Area, has also been proposed for delicensing by UKAEA.
NII has powers under Nuclear Site Licence Number 47 to issue Consents, Approvals and Directions. In addition, NII can issue Notifications, Specifications, Acknowledgements and Agreements under the conditions attached to the Licence, or under arrangements made by UKAEA for complying with those conditions.
A new numbering system was introduced on 1 October 2004 for site licence actions, and all such actions are now called Licence Instruments. During quarter one, the following Licence Instruments were issued: