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 URENCO (Capenhurst) Ltd Local 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 LLC meetings and will be happy to respond to questions raised there or subsequently by members of the LLC. 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 www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear/ home under “Local Liaison Committee Reports”.The site was visited by NII inspectors on :-
July 19 th
August 11 th
September 7 th, 8 th & 28 thEach NII Site Inspector has an inspection programme to inspect compliance of operations on the site with the 36 Nuclear Site Licence Conditions (LCs). During this quarter particular attention has been paid to compliance by the licensee to licence conditions :-
No issues were raised from the compliance inspections undertaken during this period which required formal regulatory action to be taken.
The UCL arrangements for demonstrating compliance with Licence Condition 2 have been reviewed with UCL. A walk around the UCL & BNGSL Site boundary was also undertaken during which a number of minor issues were observed and noted. UCL were already aware of many of the issues identified during the inspection and had a programme of work to address them. UCL have added the additional actions identified during the inspection to its programme of work.
Following the inspection of the UCL LC12 arrangements, as implemented in the B650 operations area, outlined in the last period report a further inspection of the LC12 arrangements has been undertaken at the A3 Facility. The inspection again revealed that the workers in this area had been appointed as DAPs & SQEPs according to an established process and had been required to complete an appropriate training programme. However the inspection confirmed some generic procedural weaknesses with the current processes and procedures. NII intend to carry out a follow up inspection in early 2006.
An inspection and plant visit were undertaken as part of the assessment of the UCL submission of the Safety Commissioning Schedules (SCS) for the commissioning of the E23G facility. Overall no major issues or concerns were raised from the review of the aspects of the commissioning process covered by the inspection. Subsequent to this inspection NII issued an acknowledgement of receipt of the E23G SCS documentation.
Aspects of the implementation of the site LC28 arrangements within the E22 facility were inspected. The inspection was a follow up inspection on the LC28 inspection at E23 reported in the last period report. Overall the inspection confirmed a number of aspects as being generic issues across the site. These aspects will be followed up in further discussions with UCL. E22 demonstrated to NII a simple and effective method, developed by E22 staff, to monitor and track maintenance and testing work on the safety related systems. This system was regarded by NII as an area of good practice.
Land Acquisition Proposals Discussion - UCL have informed NII that UCL are seeking to arrange a transfer to their control of a number of areas of the BNGSL Capenhurst site. UCL stated that the proposals are subject to ongoing discussions with BNGSL/NDA and their legal departments. These transfers may lead to a relicensing of the site submission to NII being required. UCL also indicated, if possible, it would seek to de-licence a part of the UCL site near the current entrance to the site as part of the potential relicensing submissions. UCL agreed to keep NII aware of the progress on the ongoing discussions with BNGSL & NDA regarding these proposed transfers.
Alarm Management Discussions - Visits to the A3 & E22 control rooms have been undertaken to gain some initial information for a possible future NII enhanced specialist inspection on alarm management.
Capenhurst Emergency Planning Consultative Committee (EPCC) Meeting – The latest meeting of the Capenhurst EPCC was attended . The main agenda item was a review of the progress against the actions arising from the recent Level 2 Emergency Exercise “Eagle”.
Meeting with Site Safety Representatives - A meeting of the UCL Safety Representatives was attended.
Site Training Arrangements – A meeting has been held with members of UCL central training department as an initial fact finding discussion on the scope of the work carried out by the department. NII intends to carry out a series of inspections of the implementation of the training arrangements at the various facilities across the site and a follow up detailed inspection of the central training function.
Groundwater & Contaminated Land Investigations - A presentation updating EA & NII on the BNGSL/UCL groundwater and contaminated land investigations on the Capenhurst site was attended.
Miscellaneous Matters
During the period a number of miscellaneous topics were discussed with UCL including the:
Nothing to report this period
None
The Inspectorate has powers under the licence to issue Consents, Approvals and Directions. In addition, the Inspectorate uses Licence Instruments to issue Specifications, Acknowledgements and Agreements under either the conditions attached to the Licence, or arrangements made by UCL for complying with those conditions. The Consents/Approvals/Directions and Licence Instruments issued during the quarter were –
DATE |
TYPE |
No |
DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|---|---|
| 27.7.05 | Acknowledgement | 503 | Acknowledgement under the arrangements made under Licence Condition 21 of the Safety Commissioning Schedules for the E23G Plant |
HM Principal Inspector (Nuclear Installations)