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 Nuclear Licenced Site (BNLS) Site Stakeholder Group (SSG) and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at BNLS. These reports are distributed quarterly. Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate normally attend SSG meetings and will respond to any questions raised there or subsequently by members of the SSG. Any other person wishing to inquire about matters covered by this report should contact the HSE, Nuclear Directorate on 0151 951 3484/3290.
This report will be put onto the HSE website at: http//www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear/llc/index.htm - under the heading: Local Liaison Committee Reports.
Berkeley was visited for routine inspections and meetings on two occasions during this quarter. The visits were made on the following dates:
The main thrust during this period was concerned with progression towards partial delicensing of the Berkeley Nuclear Licensed Site as well as continued compliance with the requirements of the Nuclear Site Licence and continued operations associated with the current decommissioning phase of the station’s lifecycle.
A large part of the Berkeley Centre portion of the Berkeley Nuclear Licensed Site was successfully delicensed on December 22nd 2006.
Routine inspections were carried out against the following Licence Conditions (LC) in this quarter:
LC11 – An NII team observed a repeat demonstration emergency exercise on November 21st. The NII team judged that Berkeley had demonstrated their emergency response arrangements and capability to a very high standard in all areas. A rating of ‘Exemplar’ was recorded against the demonstration exercise.
LC2 – As a pre-requisite to the planned partial site delicensing, the NII site inspector walked the boundary of the proposed relicensed site on December 12th. The boundary fencing and signage were found to be adequate to meet the requirements of LC2.
NII site inspector and his unit manager attended the annual regulatory review meeting with the Berkeley lead team on November 23rd. NII judged that Berkeley had improved overall safety performance and had made good progress with decommissioning projects over the previous twelve month period.
NII site inspector for Berkeley and NII site inspector for Trawsfynydd met with four Berkeley site safety representatives for a bi-annual meeting on November 20th. Issues discussed were safety standards, morale, worker interface with the management team and recording of incidents and events.
Overall safety performance was considered to be adequate by the Safety Representatives. Relationships and interface with the management team was considered to be good. Some concerns were expressed over uncertainties amongst staff relating to future stability of job positions and what actual jobs people may be doing in the future. The Safety Representatives stated that concerns had been raised over apparent project pressures to complete work to programme timescales. NII site inspector for Berkeley asked if there were any examples of where project pressures had affected or detracted from safety performance and it was considered that there were none. NII site inspector for Berkeley suggested that staff were still adjusting to the relatively new experience at Berkeley of working in a project driven decommissioning environment. The Safety Representatives agreed that this was probably the case.
Nil
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.
NII issued a Licence Instrument to grant a variation to the Berkeley Nuclear Site Licence on December 22nd 2006 that effectively delicensed a large portion of the Berkeley Centre part of the Berkeley Nuclear Licensed Site.
HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate
Redgrave Court
Merton Road
Bootle
Merseyside
L20 7HS