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 Hartlepool Local Community Liaison Council and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at Hartlepool Power Station. These reports are distributed quarterly. Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (part of the Health and Safety Executive's Nuclear Directorate) attend LCLC meetings and will be happy to respond there to questions raised by members of the LCLC. Any person wishing to inquire about matters covered by this report should contact the HSE, Nuclear Directorate on 0151-951-3484/3290
This report will be placed on the HSE website at
http://www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear/index.htm under “Local Liaison Committee Reports”.
The site inspector visited the site on six occasions during the quarter:
In addition, additional NII inspectors visited the site during the period to assist with the Level 1 demonstration emergency exercise and separately as part of a team inspection across all the major nuclear licensees.
As part of their routine work NII inspectors inspect for compliance against the requirements of the Station’s Nuclear Site Licence, the Health and Safety at Work Act and other relevant safety legislation. They monitor events, plant operations, projects, modifications and safety case changes and any other matters which are important to safety. Planned inspections during the quarter included, documents and records (LC6), incidents on site (LC7), emergency arrangements (LC11), periodic review of safety (LC15), modification to existing plant (LC22), operating rules (LC23), control and supervision of operations (LC26), maintenance, inspection and test (LC28), periodic shutdown (LC30), management of radwaste (LC32) and control of organisational change (LC36).
In general the station’s arrangements were found to be satisfactory. In those areas where improvements were identified, satisfactory commitments to address the issues were made by the station. Routine aspects of particular significance are summarised below:
This exercise was held on the 16th May after the earlier exercise “Athena” in January identified arrangements which needed improvement associated with the mobile Access Control Point and communications within the command chain. The exercise in May demonstrated an adequate performance in these specific aspects. The next scheduled exercise is the Level 2 exercise “Jordan” in July 2007.
A series of team inspections by NII are planned for this financial year to benchmark the performance of major UK nuclear licensees against UK and international best practice. The first team inspection was held at Hartlepool mid-June. The output from this series of inspections will be used to provide feedback to all of the licensees involved.
As part of their planned inspection, site inspectors examine safety related events that have occurred and the Licensee’s response to them. Generally the Licensee’s internal system for following up events is robust and the appropriate actions are implemented.
This event was described in the previous quarterly report. NII have not yet received a copy of the report from the formal internal investigation and will review this to ensure a thorough investigation has been completed and that the plan to rectify any identified shortfalls is suitable and sufficient.
An aggressive cleaning campaign involving air lancing of material resulted in debris which gave BE staff cause for concern. A sample confirmed the presence of Chrysotile asbestos. An extensive sampling campaign confirmed limited evidence of asbestos (9 positive samples out of 345). A clean up campaign was organised by British Energy. An HSE asbestos specialist confirmed that the company took appropriate actions in a timely manner.
Under Health and Safety legislation the Site Inspector, or other HSE Inspectors, may issue formal notices to secure improvements to safety. No such notices were issued during the reporting period.
Two Directions to Leave Undisturbed were issued by the site inspector using his section 20 powers from the Health and Safety at Work Act during the Asbestos contamination event. They were issued to secure evidence for examination, these examinations were subsequently not required and the Directions were allowed to expire.
The Inspectorate has powers under the Licence to issue Consents, Approvals and Directions. In addition the Inspectorate uses Licence Instruments to issue Specifications and Agreements under the conditions of the Licence. These are all called Licence Instruments. The following Licence Instruments were issued during the period.
Licence Instrument 516 granting approval of the Hartlepool Emergency Plan Issue 5.
Licence Instrument 517 giving agreement to BEGL proposals to install a reactor vessel flood detection system and associated off load feed tripping system.
Licence Instrument 518 giving agreement to BEGL proposals to refurbish the ECW buried cast iron seawater cooling pipework.
Licence Instrument 519 giving agreement to BEGL proposals to change the gas circulator lubricating oil from one Shell product to another.
Nuclear Safety Directorate
Health and Safety Executive
Redgrave Court
Merton Road
Bootle
Merseyside
L20 7HS