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 Hartlepool Local Community Liaison Council and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at Hartlepool Power Station. These reports are distributed quarterly and are also available on the HSE’s web site at http://www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear/llc/index.htm. Site inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate usually attend LCLC meetings and will respond to questions raised there by members of the LCLC. Any other person wishing to enquire about matters covered by this report may contact the HSE’s Nuclear Directorate on 0151-951-3484/3290.
Nuclear Safety Directorate
Health and Safety Executive
Redgrave Court
Merton Road
Bootle
Merseyside
L20 7HS
The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) Site Inspector made inspections on the following dates during the quarter: -
Hartlepool Power Station
Inspections are undertaken at site as part of the process for monitoring compliance with:
This entails monitoring licensee’s actions on the site in relation to incidents, operations, maintenance, projects, modifications, safety case changes and any other matters which may affect safety. The licensees are required to make and implement adequate arrangements under the conditions attached to the licence in order to ensure legal compliance. Inspections seek to judge both the adequacy of these arrangements and their implementation. In this period routine inspections of Hartlepool Power Station covered:
In general the arrangements made and implemented by Hartlepool Power Station in response to safety requirements were deemed to be adequate in the areas inspected. However, where improvements were considered necessary, satisfactory commitments to address the issues were made by or are being sought from the licensee, and the site inspector will monitor progress during future visits. Where necessary, formal regulatory enforcement action will be taken to ensure that appropriate remedial measures are implemented to reasonably practicable timescales.
The Level 1 emergency exercise deferred from December 07 was held in March 2008. The station provided an adequate demonstration of their emergency arrangements. This was the first demonstration exercise to use the new simulator facility and the enhanced realism was a significant improvement. However, the increased pressure on the staff within the simulator highlighted some areas for improvement in communications and command and control. The station were therefore asked to re-demonstrate specific aspects of the CCR performance at a shift exercise within six months.
The Annual Review of Safety meeting was held in January. An extensive report was provided by the station in advance of the meeting and its content was discussed at the meeting. NII noted the improvements in safety reported at the meeting and the commitments given by the station to enhance the station’s safety performance. In addition to these commitments, NII also outlined a small number of additional topics which would be monitored to ensure their delivery helped improve the overall safety performance.
Licensees are required to have arrangements to respond to non-routine matters and events. NII inspectors judge the adequacy of the licensee’s response including actions taken to implement any necessary improvements. One matter of particular note considered during the current period is the following.
After the shutdown of both reactors reported in the last quarter of 2007, both reactors remained shutdown for all of the first quarter of 2008. The BCU recovery project team has continued reviewing options for repair and/or strengthening and undertaking further inspections. A strategy has been developed for engineering modifications and safety case production; this has completed due process within the licensees’ organisation. NII continue to: monitor developments within this project; and, have a regulatory hold on the re-start of both Hartlepool reactors.
Under Health and Safety legislation NII Site Inspectors, and other HSE Inspectors, may issue formal documents to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. Under nuclear site licence conditions HSE/NII issues regulatory documents, which either permission an activity or require some form of action to be taken; these are collectively termed Licence Instruments (LI). In addition inspectors may issue enforcement notices to secure improvements to safety.
One LI was issued to the licensee during the quarter: -
Licence Instrument 523 issuing an Agreement under Licence Condition 22(1) to implement Automatic Quadrant Feed Trip for use in Major Boiler Tube Leakage Faults.
No enforcement notices were issued during the reporting period.