HSE publishes review of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority's Decommissioning Strategy

HSE Press Release E223:02 - 5 December 2002

The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) has published a report on its review of the strategy of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) for the decommissioning its nuclear licensed sites. The review was undertaken by HSE's Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII), in consultation with the Environment Agency and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.

Commenting on the review, Laurence Williams, HM Chief Inspector of Nuclear Installations, said:

"I recognise the considerable effort that UKAEA has put into developing its decommissioning strategy. On the basis of our current knowledge, I am satisfied that the strategy proposed by UKAEA is generally appropriate, however we shall review the situation again in five years time to ensure that UKAEA's strategy remains suitable should new information change current assumptions."

The review considers the technical - and some financial - aspects of UKAEA's strategy for decommissioning the four sites for which it holds nuclear site licences. These sites are Dounreay in Caithness, Windscale in Cumbria, Harwell in Oxfordshire, and Winfrith in Dorset. UKAEA also has a site at Culham in Oxfordshire, at which it manages the UK fusion research programme and the operation of the Joint European Torus (JET) for Euratom. Although Culham is not a nuclear licensed site, there are interactions between the Culham and Harwell strategies that have been taken into account in the review.

The review compares UKAEA's strategy with national and international guidance, and considers the underlying assumptions made and whether the plans submitted are comprehensive and appropriate.

Key findings of the review include:

• Overall, HSE regards UKAEA's strategy for the decommissioning and remediation of its sites to be generally appropriate at this time. The strategy is broadly consistent with government policy and generally sufficiently flexible to be adapted to take account of changing circumstances;
• The scope of the strategy for each site is considered to be comprehensive, although for some liabilities final decisions are yet to be made on the management strategy;
• The project timescales are generally considered to be consistent with HSE's expectations that decommissioning and waste retrieval should be undertaken as soon as reasonably practicable. However there are a number of projects for which HSE would welcome an acceleration of the timescales, if that is shown to be reasonably practicable;
• There are a number of facilities for which UKAEA needs to produce more robust arguments for why they cannot be decommissioned earlier;
• There are a number of areas where UKAEA needs to develop and update its strategy and Liabilities Estimate before the next quinquennial review. NII will progress these issues with UKAEA as part of its routine regulatory work. In the longer term, there are a number of significant project risks and uncertainties associated with the strategy, a number of which are not wholly within UKAEA's control.

Notes to editors

1. UKAEA is a Non-Departmental Public Body reporting to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. UKAEA is the owner of the sites and the liabilities, and is a Nuclear Site Licensee under the Nuclear Installations Act 1965 (as amended).

2. The review was undertaken in accordance with the 1995 White Paper 'Review of Radioactive Waste Management Policy: Final Conclusions' (Cm 2919, Department of the Environment, HMSO, 1995, ISBN 0 11 08539 5). This stated that the Government would ask all nuclear operators to draw up strategies for the decommissioning of their redundant plant and that HSE would review those strategies on a quinquennial (five-yearly) basis, in conjunction with the environment agencies.

3. The review considers the decommissioning strategy described by UKAEA in documents submitted to NII in September 2001.

4. Similar quinquennial reviews of other licensees' decommissioning strategies are currently being undertaken and reported by HSE.

5. The proposed Liabilities Management Authority (LMA) will substantially alter the way in which UK public sector decommissioning is planned and funded. Although the reviews are intended to be performed on a five-yearly basis, HSE will review the timing of the next report in the light of progress in establishing the LMA.

'UKAEA's strategy for the decommissioning of its nuclear licensed sites - a review by HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate' is available on HSE's website at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear/nuc20.pdf

Press enquiries

All enquiries from journalists should be directed to the HSE Press Office