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 Directorate
Health and Safety Executive
Redgrave Court
Merton Road
Bootle
Merseyside
L20 7HS
Two site inspection visits was undertaken this quarter:
A new site inspector took over responsibilities during the period. The opportunity was taken during the November visit to familiarise the new inspector with the site.
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 27th October visit I and 3 colleagues inspected the Licensee’s emergency arrangements by virtue of witnessing the annual Level 1 demonstration emergency exercise. The arrangements were found to be adequate. The scenario was challenging and brought out examples of both good performance and a number of learning points, which have been taken forwards by the site.
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.
An incident occurred on 2nd October 2008 where a de-cabling team accidentally cut into a live cable that was thought to be dead. No-one was injured. We decided to investigate this incident and examine whether enforcement action was warranted. The visit on 24th November 2008 involved an electrical specialist colleague and myself visiting the scene of the incident and undertaking the investigation.
From the information gathered and following internal guidance, it was decided that the appropriate and proportionate enforcement action will consist of:
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.
The only regulatory activity concerned the electrical incident and is reported above.
There were no Licence Instruments issued in the period covered by this report.