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 Hinkley Point Site Stakeholder Group and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at Hinkley Point A Decommissioning Site. 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 Site Stakeholder Group meetings and will respond to any questions raised there by the members of the group. Any other person wishing to inquire about matters covered by this report should contact the HSE, Nuclear Directorate on 0151-951-3484.
Nuclear Safety Directorate
Health and Safety Executive
Redgrave Court
Merton Road
Bootle
Merseyside
L20 7HS
One site inspection visit was undertaken this quarter. An earlier site inspection visit was made late in June, which was too late for the results of that inspection to be incorporated into the last report to the SSG. These results are reported here.
Inspections at Hinkley Point A 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 licensee/operators 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 (site/station) covered:
Licence Condition planned inspections – On my 26th June visit I inspected the Licensee’s arrangements for Operating Rules. These arrangements were generally found to be adequate, although some issues were uncovered that the Licensee is addressing.
On my 4th August visit I undertook inspections of the Licensee’s arrangements for Control and Supervision of Operations.
NII’s Deputy Chief Inspector in charge of reactor regulation (which covers decommissioning Magnox sites) visited site and was generally content with the work he observed. He was particularly pleased to see the progress made to clean and decontaminate one of the Pond buildings.
Licensees are required to have arrangements to respond to non-routine matters and events. NII inspectors judge the adequacy of the licensee’s/operators response including actions taken to implement any necessary improvements. Matters of particular note considered during the current period include the following.
There were no non-routine matters to report this quarter.
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.
NDA's competition strategy called for Magnox Electric Ltd to be split into two Site Licence Companies: Magnox North Ltd and Magnox South Ltd. This split took place on 1st October 2008, when Magnox North Ltd became the nuclear site licence holder for Chapelcross, Hunterston A, Oldbury, Trawsfynydd and Wylfa and Magnox South Ltd became the nuclear site licence holder for Berkeley, Bradwell, Dungeness A, Hinkley Pt A and Sizewell A. Magnox North sites did not need re-licensing because the new company is simply a re-naming of Magnox Electric Ltd. Magnox South Ltd has been set up as a separate company and required it’s site’s, including Hinkley Pt A, to be re-licensed on 1st October.
To achieve this split HSE has been working closely with Magnox Electric Limited, NDA, other Government Departments and other regulators (particularly EA and SEPA) for over two years. The project has delivered improvements in a number of areas.
One of these improvements is that each site, including Hinkley Pt A, has had to develop new arrangements to control its decommissioning programme. These give HSE greater regulatory control over changes to the programme where they have a significant impact on hazard reduction on site. For the most significant proposed programme changes the site will have to send a formal submission to NII providing a full safety justification for the proposed change and then will not be able to alter the programme until HSE has provided a formal permission.
Also during the period one Consent was issues under Licence Condition 3 to enable the Licensee to grant a sub-licence to Orange Telecommunications to erect and operate a mobile phone mast, to improve reception on site.
| Number | Date | Subject |
|---|---|---|
| 500 | 19/9/08 | Approval, granted under Condition 13(2) to approve the terms of reference for the Nuclear Safety Committee |
| 501 | 24/9/08 | Specification, granted under Condition 36(2), requiring submission of part of Licensee’s arrangements concerning Control of Organisational Change to HSE for Approval. |
| 502 | 24/9/08 | Specification, granted under Condition 28(4), requiring submission of Maintenance Schedule Preface to HSE for Approval. |
| 503 | 30/9/08 | Approval, granted under Condition 36(2) to approve part of the Licensee’s arrangements concerning Control of Organisational Change. |
| 507 | 11/9/08 | Consent, granted under Condition 3(1) to enable Magnox electric Ltd to issue a sub-licence agreement to Orange Personnel Communications Ltd to erect and operate a telephone mast on the site. |