Executive summary
Date(s) of inspection: June 2024
Aim of inspection
The Sellafield Ltd arrangements for Site Licence Condition 11 require a Regulator Evaluated Demonstration Exercise (REDE) on an annual basis for nuclear safety and security.
The aim of the inspection was for the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) to evaluate the emergency exercise and judge the adequacy and ability of Sellafield Ltd to put its' emergency response arrangements into effect at any time.
Subject(s) of inspection
- LC11 - Emergency arrangements - Rating: Green
Key findings, inspector's opinions and reasons for judgement made
This intervention record covers the planned inspection of Exercise Focus, a Sellafield Ltd Level 1 safety demonstration exercise. The purpose of the intervention was to evaluate the adequacy of existing arrangements to ensure compliance with Licence Condition 11.
Licence Condition 11 (LC11) requires the licensee to make and implement adequate arrangements to deal with any accident or emergency arising on the site and to ensure that such arrangements are rehearsed periodically.
The exercise was assessed by a multi-discipline team of nine ONR inspectors located at strategic positions around the site. The inspection was completed in accordance with the following ONR guidance:NS-INSP-GD-011, Revision 7.1, March 2021 – Emergency arrangements.
Sellafield Ltd demonstrated its emergency arrangements with an exercise involving a fire at the Pile Fuel Cladding Silo. The scenario provided a challenge to the responders with an emergency intervention, casualty and radiological release. ONR welcomes demanding exercises as they generally provide greater learning opportunities.
There were a number of areas of good practice with effective command and control at the incident plant and the implementation of timely and considered actions to protect the workers and public. The exercise objectives were achieved, there were also associated learning opportunities with Sellafield Limited making some observations regarding emergency communications. ONR has an existing regulatory issue on emergency communications and there continue to be regular engagements on the associated improvement programme.
We consider that this was a challenging demonstration and Sellafield Limited adequately demonstrated the application of their emergency arrangements warranting an intervention rating of green (no formal action) for LC11.
Conclusion
In our opinion, this was a challenging demonstration and Sellafield Limited adequately demonstrated the application of their emergency arrangements warranting an intervention rating of green (no formal action) for LC11.