- Site: AWE Aldermaston
- IR number: 21-058
- Date: July 2021
- LC numbers: N/A
Executive summary
Purpose of Intervention
In 2018 the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) presented its second ten yearly Periodic Review of Safety (PRS2) for its Main Production Facility (MPF) on the AWE Aldermaston site. The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) undertook a detailed assessment of this PRS2 submission across several specialist technical disciplines, which included Radiological Protection (RP).
ONR’s assessment of RP aspects of the MPF PRS2 produced eleven ‘Recommendations’ for improvements, which were agreed with AWE. Each Recommendation is recorded as a corresponding ‘Action’ under ONR Regulatory Issue (RI) No. 7552. AWE has been making progress towards closure of each of the eleven Recommendations. When all eleven Actions under the RI have been closed by AWE, then the RI will also be closed. The purpose of this inspection was two-fold:-
The ONR PTC Site inspector took the opportunity to review AWE progress with improving house-keeping issues, identified during a recent Licence Condition (LC) 32 Compliance inspection conducted in MPF.
To review progress against those RP Recommendations that remain open (with a view to agreeing closure of those Recommendations where the evidence presented during the inspection showed adequate progress had been delivered by AWE).
Interventions Carried Out by ONR
This inspection was broadly conducted against the Ionising Radiations Regulations (IRR) 2017 and relevant ONR guidance, although where other legislation is also pertinent, then this has been captured in the text below.
The inspection commenced with an office-based discussion with key AWE managers for the MPF (including the Radiological Protection Advisor, RPA, for the MPF). The ONR PTC Site Inspector and the two ONR RP specialist inspectors were present on behalf of ONR. Following on from these initial discussions a plant walkdown was conducted around a significant number of bays and laboratories which form the active production facilities in the MPF.
Explanation of Judgement if Safety System Not Judged to be Adequate
N/A
Key Findings, Inspector's Opinions and Reasons for Judgements Made
Based on our observations in the facility and the information presented by AWE during this inspection, we are content that all the RP Recommendations can be closed out, except for RP_2 relating to signage and RP_5 relating to shielding calculations. Hence RI 7552 will remain open until demonstrable progress has been made in the MPF with a more enduring solution to on-plant safety-related signage (RP_2), and the licensee addresses the ONR comments on the report presented as closure of RP_5. We also took the opportunity to review progress with housekeeping issues in the facility ground floor area that had been identified in previous inspections. This part of the inspection does not factor into the inspection rating.