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 and are available also from the Internet at http://www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear/index.htm. 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 on 0151-951-3484/3290 .
A total of 23 NII inspectors visited the Aldermaston and Burghfield sites during the quarter. The Deputy Chief Inspector of Nuclear Installations responsible for the regulation of Defence Related Sites visited the AWE Aldermaston nuclear licensed site on 9 November 2006. There were visits from other HSE inspectors in relation to conventional safety, and explosives.
NII inspections were made on the following dates:
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:
The Deputy Chief Inspector of Nuclear Installations responsible for Defence Related Sites undertook a visit to the AWE Aldermaston nuclear licensed site on 9 November 2007. He had presentations and tours of the operational areas.
The Government White Paper on the future of UK's nuclear deterrent (Cm 6994) was published in December 2006. This stated that the programme of investment in sustaining capabilities at AWE will continue. This investment is to ensure that both the existing warhead is maintained for as long as necessary, and to enable the development of a replacement warhead if that is required. Additional investment averaging £350 million per annum over the years 2005/06 to 2007/08 was announced in 2005. The Government considers that further investment will be necessary, and early in the next decade, the costs of AWE are likely - at their peak- to be equivalent of about 3% of the current defence budget. HSE is working with AWE and MOD on the development of this Programme to ensure that nuclear safety issues are properly considered at the outset.
The PRS for VIPER was submitted to NII for assessment in November 2006. Preliminary examination of the documentation has begun.
NII continues to undertake assessment work in support of an AWE submission on contained hydrodynamic trials.
The PRS submission has been delayed and is now forecast for delivery in March 2007. Technical discussions with AWE on the content of the PRS are ongoing.
A Licence Instrument was issued to permit a move to active commissioning.
NII is now examining the Burghfield PRS submission and AWE’s proposals for remediation work. NII is pressing AWE to complete these work packages as soon as reasonably practicable.
NII is keen to see early completion of the proposed new Assembly/Disassembly Facility and is in discussion with AWE and MoD on the design and construction programme to determine whether it is reasonably practicable to bring first use of the facility sooner than is currently planned.
A further agreement to the limited ongoing use of the current process for weapons assembly/disassembly has been given by NII.
On 5th December, NII inspectors, assisted by inspectors from the Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator, witnessed an emergency exercise that demonstrated use of modified facilities at Burghfield. It was deemed that the exercise successfully demonstrated that AWE would have coped in the case of a real event. A number of learning points were raised with AWE and an action plan is now being formulated.
1. Licence Instruments are a set of regulatory tools, available to and issued by the Inspectorate, to effect regulatory control by permissioning, specifying, directing etc. the activities of licensees. They can be used to acknowledge receipt of specified documents, e.g. 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 etc.