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 sites available to the public. It is for distribution to members of the AWE Local Liaison Committee (LLC) and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at Aldermaston and Burghfield. These reports are distributed quarterly. Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate attend LLC meetings and will be happy to respond to any questions raised there by members. Any other person wishing to enquire about matters covered by this report may contact HSE's Nuclear Directorate Information Centre on 0151-951-4103.
1. A total of 17 different NII inspectors visited the Aldermaston and Burghfield sites during the quarter, including a routine visit from Mr R C Gray, HM Deputy Chief Inspector of Nuclear Installations. Inspections were made on the following days:
| Aldermaston |
20-23 April 26-28 April 11-14 May 1-3 June 23-25 June |
| Burghfield |
26-27 April 5 May 11 May 2 June 24 June |
2. Inspections are undertaken for the purpose of monitoring compliance with (i) the conditions attached by HSE to the nuclear site licences, and (ii) other relevant provisions of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, including the Ionising Radiations Regulations 1999. In this period routine inspections included:
a. Provision and assessment of safety cases and compliance with
arrangements made under licence conditions.
b. Management of facility operations and maintenance.
c. Proposals for new plants.
d. Emergency arrangements.
e. Decommissioning of redundant facilities.
f. Waste management.
g. Operating rules, operating instructions, and operational
records.
h. Arrangements for the control of modifications to existing
plants.
i. Arrangements for the notification, recording, investigation, and
reporting of incidents on the sites.
3. Issues arising from these and previous inspections are being pursued. Inspections were made also by HSE's factory inspectors, construction inspector and explosives inspectors.
4. Fissile Material Control:
NII has focused attention on the integrated programme for improving
AWE's process for control in this area. Significant improvements
in the delivery of this work are now being observed.
5. Human Factors Procedures:
NII welcomes the introduction of a human factors expert onto the AWE
team and is working closely to establish good procedures for this
work area.
6. Preparation for annual Review Meeting:
Discussions were held to prepare for the Annual Review of Safety to
be held between NII and AWE in July 2004. This included changes to
arrangements for the monitoring and reporting of doses.
7. Seismic Characterisation:
NII has worked closely with its Licensees to establish the seismic
characterisation of Licenced sites. NII welcomes the position that
AWE has now begun this characterisation of the site which will
subsequently allow the seismic challenge to be assessed.
8. Co-operation with NWR:
As previously presented to the LLC, by AWE, the MOD Nuclear Weapons
Regulator (NWR) is now in a period of shadow operation. The first of
a series of periodic meetings between NII and NWR has now been held
to establish how the interface with NWR will be managed. To ensure
that the regulatory burden on AWE is kept to a minimum information
will be shared in this forum as was the case at this meeting.
9. Routine visit of Deputy Chief Inspector:
In line with NII practices, Mr R Gray, the Deputy Chief Inspector
with responsibility for defence related sites visited both
Aldermaston and Burghfield to observe standards of safety on the
sites and to meet with AWE staff.
10. Intermediate Level Waste Management: Further dialogue took place to clarify the AWE programme of work for the treatment, storage and assay of all solid ILW on site. This was attended by NII specialist assessors. The conceptual design for the ILW treatment plant, segregation and minimisation of wastes were the subject of these discussions.
11. Site steam system supply changes:
NII has been involved in discussions on this topic to ensure that the
changes to the means of providing steam services to facilities do not
introduce unacceptable additional external hazards to facilities on
site.
12. Hydrodynamic Facility Safety Case:
NII has now begun to consider the safety case for hydrodynamics
operations in the futre.
13. New Decommissioning Techniques:
AWE are carrying out work to introduce new decommissioning
techniques. NII has been involved with discussions on this topic to
ensure that added risks aren't introduced by the processes. The
new techniques have the added advantage of reducing the time to size
reduce material thus reducing dose levels to staff.
14. Change to A90 Shift patterns:
Discussions were held on this topic to ensure that changes to the A90
shift patterns would not be implemented until NII was convinced that
they are appropriate. An initial change to the direction of rotation
of the shift pattern has been made to bring it inline with common
practice. NII is satisfied that the work being carried out to
restructure the shift pattern is being developed between AWE
management and unions and will be exposed to NII before
implementation.
15. SWARF Recovery Facility:
NII held meetings and inspections during this quarter which enabled
it to give agreement to this project moving forward into the active
commissioning phase.
16. Material Stock Control:
A very small quantity of depleted Uranium could not initially be
accounted for. Through its inspection, NII has satisfied itself that
this material has in fact been consigned with other waste.
17. Discussions were held between NII and AWE regarding the preparation and delivery of its Periodic Review of Safety (PRS and a programme for future work agreed
18. To assist in handover of NII site inspector duties at Burghfield, joint compliance inspections were made of the site.
19 As part of its regulation under the nuclear site licences NII issues formal regulatory documents, which include Consents, Approvals, Directions, and Licence Instruments .1
20 Approval number 13 for Aldermaston and number 4 for Burghfield were issued to approve the replacement Emergency Plan for each site.
21 Licence Instrument No 27 was issued - SPECIFICATION UNDER LICENCE CONDITION 22( 4 ) , HYDRODYNAMICS AREA. This was to ensure that work which had not been previously carried out there for some time did not recommence without NII Consent.
22 Licence Instrument No 28 was - AGREEMENT TO COMMENCE ACTIVE COMMISSIONING OF A45 SWARF LINE.
23 No other issues have arisen that have required formal regulatory action.
1 Licence Instruments are issued to acknowledge receipt of specified documents, eg proposals for a new or modified plant; to stipulate whether the Inspectorate intends to examine these documents, or to agree to the start of a particular phase of construction, commissioning, modification, or decommissioning.
Published on the HSE web site 11 October 2004