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 Dungeness Power Stations Local Community Liaison Council (LCLC) and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at Dungeness A Power Station. These reports are distributed quarterly. Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate attend LCLC meetings and will be happy to respond to any questions raised there by members of the LCLC. Any other persons wishing to inquire about matters covered in this report should contact HSE, Nuclear Directorate Information Center on 0151 - 951 - 4103.
NII Inspectors made the following visits to Dungeness A Power Station during the period:
1 - 4 July 2002
22 - 24 July 2002
2 - 4 September 2002
17 - 18 September 2002
Compliance Inspections During these visits the site inspector carried out planned inspections of the licensee's compliance with:
(i) the conditions attached to the Site Licence;
(ii) the Ionising Radiations Regulations; and
(iii) other relevant health and safety legislation.
Every year the station demonstrates its emergency arrangements in an exercise witnessed by the NII. This years Level 1 demonstration exercise took place on 18 September and was witnessed by an NII team led by the Superintending Inspector for Magnox reactors. The NII team concluded that the station provided an adequate demonstration of its emergency plan although as always during these exercises a number of learning points were identified by both parties. These will be incorporated into the stations arrangements to ensure continuous improvement. Part of the exercise included demonstrating the new Alternative Access Control Point (AACP). This facility has the potential to meet the best practice within the industry but was unfortunately not fully completed at the time of the exercise. The NII will therefore be witnessing the full operation of the AACP at the next shift exercise in November 2002.
As part of planned inspections the site inspector examined the licensee's arrangements for the recording and investigation of events on the station, and where appropriate undertook independent investigations to the extent that was warranted by the significance of the event.
The station carried out a mini outage during September to make improvements to the reactor pressure vessel shield cooling air system. Similar improvements were carried out on reactor 1 during its statutory outage in May. These improvements are aimed at providing better control of the pressure vessel operating conditions and are as a result of the revised pressure vessel safety case recently put to the NII.
The Inspectorate has powers under the License to issue Consents, Approvals and Directions. No Consents, Approvals or Directions were issued during this period. In addition the Inspectorate uses Licence Instruments to issue Specifications and Agreements under the conditions attached to the Licence. During the period the following Licence Instruments were issued:
LI 33 gave our agreement to refuelling machine number 1 to complete its commissioning on an operating reactor following a major refurbishment.
LI 34 gave our agreement to changes to the scope of the refuelling machine refurbishment programme to allow machine number 3 to complete a reduced refurbishment programme. This will mean that this machine will not be able to carry out on load refuelling but only to act as an off load service hoist.
LI 35 gave our agreement to a paper of principle defining plant improvements to allow the biological shield temperatures to be raised above its current limits.
Published on the HSE web site 3 December 2002