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 Capenhurst Local Stakeholder Group (LSG) and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at the Capenhurst Works. These reports are distributed quarterly. Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate normally attend LSG meetings and will be happy to respond to questions raised there or subsequently by members of the LSG. Any other person wishing to inquire about matters covered by this report should contact the HSE, Nuclear Directorate Information Centre on 0151 951 4103.
This report will be put onto the HSE website at http://www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear/llc/index.htm under ‘Local Liaison Committee Reports’.
NII inspectors visited the site on the following dates:
3 rd & 4 th, 6 th & 7 th October,
28 th & 30 th November,
1 st & 14 th December
Each NII Site Inspector has an inspection programme, to inspect the licensee’s compliance against the 36 Nuclear Site Licence Conditions. During this quarter, following a number of minor events on the site, a joint inspection was conducted with the Environment Agency, of the licensee’s licence condition 7 arrangements, (incidents on the site) to ensure that the licensee was effectively learning from the experience of recent events on the site and elsewhere. The licensee’s arrangements were found to be adequate.
Compliance with the licensee’s approved emergency arrangements (licence condition 11) was tested twice during this quarter. An emergency exercise, witnessed by two NII inspectors, was observed on the evening of 6 th October. Whilst the on-site response from the supporting Urenco participants was seen to be effective, the licensee was judged not to have participated effectively in this joint exercise, (undertaken with Urenco Capenhurst Limited) and was deemed, therefore, not to have demonstrated an ‘intelligent customer’ capability, for those parts of the emergency arrangements provided by Urenco. Consequently, NII sought a repeat demonstration of the exercising of the licensee’s shift emergency arrangements. This repeat exercise, observed by a team of three NII inspectors, was successfully undertaken on the evening of 28 th November.
A positive interim Annual Review of Safety meeting was held with the licensee on 14 th December, jointly with the Environment Agency (addressing environmental matters) and with NDA also participating as an active observer. There are effective working relationships between the regulators, the licensee and the NDA at Capenhurst, which serve the interests of each party.
The site inspector reported on NII site activities from April to November, at the Local Stakeholder Group meeting held on 1 st December.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) required all of the sites, which came under their control in April 2005, to compile the long term and short term work plans for the site into two standard documents i.e. Life Cycle Baseline (LCBL) and Near Term Work Plan (NTWP) respectively. The site inspector participated in the review of the latest Life Cycle Baseline Plan, (which is underpinning some acceleration of decommissioning and hazard reduction on the site), as well as participating in the quarterly Regulatory Review meeting, involving NII, the Environment Agency, the licensee and NDA, in order to secure improvements to safety. The site inspector also participated in the additional Local Stakeholder Group meeting, called by NDA on 7 th October, to receive details of the proposed NDA Decommissioning Strategy. NII have subsequently provided comments on the impact of the draft strategy on Capenhurst, (seeking the acceleration of the timing of “Hex Tails” deconversion, supporting the proposal for NDA not to tender for the site ‘management and operations’ contract until after decommissioning has been completed around the end of 2008 and seeking clarification on the proposed site “end state”). Most notably, NII has continued to actively press the licensee to explore options to bring forward the date for the commencement of processing the legacy “Hex Tails” uranic materials currently stored on site. NII had previously expressed disappointment that the policy, issued after the licensee’s review in mid 2005, had failed to advance the declared start date for the planned deconversion of “Hex Tails” to a more stable form, (from 2020). NII is encouraged that the licensee is actively engaged in reviewing options to address the “Hex Tails” legacy, with a view to reducing the potential hazard from this legacy material earlier than currently planned. NII will continue to press for progress to be made in reducing this medium term site hazard.
Meetings with Safety Representatives.
The site inspector continues to consult with the active site safety representatives during most visits to site. The site safety culture continues to be enhanced by the activities of the enthusiastic site safety representatives
None.
No regulatory enforcement action was necessary in this quarter.
The Inspectorate has powers under the site licence to issue Consents, Approvals and Directions. In addition, the Inspectorate may use Licence Instruments to issue Specifications, Acknowledgements and Agreements, under either the conditions attached to the Licence, or arrangements made by British Nuclear Group Sellafield Limited, Capenhurst Works, for complying with those conditions. No Licence Instruments were issued in this period.
HM Principal Inspector (Nuclear Installations)
January 2006