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 Berkeley and Oldbury Local Community Liaison Council and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at Oldbury Nuclear 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 to any questions raised there by members of the LCLC. Any other person wishing to inquire about matters covered by this report should contact the HSE, Nuclear Directorate Information Centre on 0151 - 951 - 4103.
The HMNII Site Inspector for the Oldbury site and other Inspectors visited on the following dates:
| 14 - 17 January 2003 | 20 -22 January 2003 | |
| 18 - 20 February 2003 | 25 - 26 February 2003 | |
| 5 March 2003 | 17 -19 March 2003 | |
| 31 March - 2 April 2003 |
In this quarter-year period compliance inspection was undertaken on a range of licence conditions for the Shutdown Systems and Licence Conditions 32-34 on radioactive waste management. Site-wide inspections were undertaken on Safety Cases (LC 14), Nuclear Safety Committee (LC13) and Training (LC10).
These inspections mainly showed general compliance with the licence conditions. However some shortcomings were identified in the management of radioactive waste, in particular inadequate documentation and records. The Station has put in a programme of improvements in this area.
Oldbury has identified a number of recent occasions where planned modifications to the plant have been implemented without having successfully gone through all of the station's arrangements for modifications. None of these events had a detrimental effect on nuclear safety. The station continues to investigate the causes of these events and put in place improvements. NII will investigate closely this series of events to identify the root causes.
Following results of core inspection findings the station has provided its review of the graphite core safety case for continued operation. This provides a case for continued operation to the end of 2004. Magnox Electric is developing a long-term graphite core safety case for operation up to end-of-life, ie 2008.
In February the station took the opportunity to undertake further inspection and monitoring of the Reactor 1 core during an unplanned reactor outage to replace a generator transformer.
NII has expressed disappointment in delays to the control block seismic rectification project arising from, amongst other things, inadequacies in some computer modelling of proposed solutions. The Station has now provided a revised programme for completion of this work by the end of 2003. NII will monitor that programme and may consider taking enforcement action if it is not met.
NII has given its agreement to Oldbury implementing a new version of its computerised work management system called Passport.
Oldbury has been reviewing its organisational and staffing strategy for operation to end-of-generation and beyond. It is planning to make changes to work patterns and activities in the coming months, for example moving some work activities from shifts to day production and modifying staffing for the emergency scheme. All such changes have to go through the approved management of change procedures under Licence Condition 36. NII will be examining the station's plans closely and will not agree to any changes that may have a detrimental effect on nuclear safety.
The Inspectorate has power under the licence to issue Consents, Approvals and Directions. In addition the Inspectorate uses Licence Instruments to issue Specifications and Agreements under the conditions attached to the licence.
The table below summarises the formal Directions, Consents, Approvals and Licence Instruments (LI) issued during the quarter:
| Date | Type | No. | Description |
| 3 February 2003 | Approval | 10 | Approval to changes in the Operating Rules |
| 3 February 2003 | LI | 30 | Agreement under LC22 to modifications to enhance boiler loading slot safety case |
| 21 March 2003 | LI | 32 | Agreement under LC22 to completion of repairs to Centre Block Fuelling Machine Rails |
| 4 April 2003 | LI | 33 | Agreement to Implementation of Passport Version 9 |
Published on the HSE web site 6 June 2003