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HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate

MAGNOX ELECTRIC Ltd

HINKLEY POINT A POWER STATION

Quarterly report for 1 January to 31 March 2006

Contents


Foreword

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 Hinkley Point A Power Station, Site Stakeholder Group and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at Hinkley Point APower Station. These reports are distributed quarterly. Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate attend SSG meetings and will be happy to respond to questions raised there 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/index.htm under the heading: Local Liaison Committee Reports.


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Routine matters

Two site inspections were conducted this quarter:

These inspections, aimed at verifying Magnox Electric’s safety arrangements, were:

The NII Site Inspector, Mr J A Burrows, will be leaving in April 2006 to take up a new post.

The main event this quarter was the Sites Annual Review of Safety. The meeting, attended by the NII Site Inspector and Superintending Inspector saw a thorough self-analysis by the site on its past year’s safety performance, current safety aspects and a look forward to those safety enhancements that will be put in place to correct the recent safety issues. NII also looked for evidence that sites are communicating with each other with regards to sharing good practices and learning from problems encountered. Real progress now needs to be made by the Site on putting in place appropriate decommissioning arrangements.

NII are encouraged by the sites follow-up to the Emergency Exercises and the response to the findings of NII’s Ionising Radiation Inspection had been positive.

Issues associated with the draft NDA strategy to acceleration of decommissioning would present new challenges. Magnox Electric should not lose sight of the need to access corporate expertise and discharge the intelligent customer role during the latest round of organisational changes.

Hinkley Point A are leading the decommissioning power stations with constructive dialogue on safety case and periodic safety review issues. It is envisaged that these discussions should set the standard for decommissioning Magnox sites.

Hinkley Point A’s 2005 Periodic Safety Review (PSR) was submitted in Autumn 2004. However, NII resource constraints prevented completion of this assessment until now. Although the overall process adopted for this PSR had significant procedural weaknesses, necessitating additional work by NII to ascertain its adequacy, the PSR was ultimately found to be adequate. A list of improvement activities stemming from the PSR has been identified and a timetable is being developed to deliver these. The site is however already actively pursuing these improvements - progress here will be reported in future statements to the SSG.

HSE were about to undertake a review of decommissioning of power reactors from a regulatory perspective.

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Non-routine matters

None.


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Regulatory activity

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.

The Inspectorate have agreed to the adoption of the latest version of Passport (a work control system) into the site’s arrangements.

Licence Instruments (Site Licence Sc. 52a)

Number

Date

Subject

503 16th March 2006 AGREEMENT UNDER ARRANGEMENTS MADE UNDER LICENCE CONDITION 22 (1) TO THE PLACEMENT OF PASSPORT VERSION 9 INTO ROUTINE OPERATIONAL SERVICE

Mr. J A Burrows.

Hinkley Point A Site Inspector
HM Principal Inspector (Health and Safety)

Health and Safety Executive
HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate
Redgrave Court
Merton Rd
Bootle
Merseyside
L20 7HS

April 2006