Health and Safety
Executive / Commission
Nuclear
LLC reports
The 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 Capenhurst District Liaison Committee and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at Capenhurst. These reports are distributed quarterly. Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate normally attend DLC meetings and will be happy to respond to questions raised there or subsequently by members of the DLC. Any other person wishing to inquire about matters covered by this report should contact the HSE, Nuclear Directorate Information Centre on 0151 951 4103.
Five site inspection visits were made to BNFL during this period on:
This included one unannounced weekend inspection. NII's regulatory activities during this period were dominated by work to support the issue of new nuclear site licences at Capenhurst where the site inspector was supported by a number of other HSE staff based at Bootle and Rose Court, London.
BNFL's arrangements under Licence Condition 28 (Maintenance, Inspection, Examination and Testing) were reviewed and found to be generally satisfactory. The company has detailed arrangements for the production of a Maintenance Schedule for safety related items and a sample inspection identified no significant areas of concern.
Nothing to report for this period.
Staff from NII attended a presentation of proposed arrangements which may follow when the Government put in place the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). These new arrangements are likely to affect a number of UK sites including BNFL Capenhurst.
A new nuclear site licence, No 28H, was issued to BNFL by HSE which came into force on 20 December 2002. This put into effect a number of minor boundary changes. A number of important safety related benefits followed this change including revised BNFL arrangements for the storage of depleted uranium hexafluoride in J and K Bays.
Nothing to report for this period.
Nothing to report for this period.
A joint Level 1 Emergency Exercise, Albatross, was held on 16 October 2002 with UCL. This demonstration of arrangements was observed by a team of 3 NII inspectors and the performance of BNFL staff was judged to be adequate in terms of requirements under Licence Condition 11. A number of learning points were identified by both the licensees and NII and a programme of improvements has been agreed.
An out of hours weekend inspection of compliance against the Ionising Radiations Regulations 1999 was undertaken in the drum crushing facility B254. Work was largely being undertaken by AEA Technology under contract to BNFL. A number of deficiencies were identified including the role of the Radiation Protection Supervisor and Designation of Controlled Areas. BNFL have agreed to review their procedures and staff training.
BNFL notified HSE of an unusual occurrence which involved the unauthorised tampering of a current breaker device on a transformer. We welcomed BNFL's prompt reporting under Licence Condition 7 and noted that an internal management investigation had been instituted. The site inspector with support from a specialist electrical engineer followed up BNFL's actions and investigations and concluded that the company had acted appropriately in order to identify the courses and to prevent a reoccurrence.
No consents, approvals or licence instruments have been issued in this period.
Published on the HSE web site 20 May 2003