Executive summary
Date(s) of inspection: September 2024
Aim of inspection
Site demonstration exercise of its Licence Condition 11 arrangements and their effectiveness.
Subject(s) of inspection
- LC 11 - Emergency arrangements - Rating: Amber
Key findings, inspector's opinions and reasons for judgement made
I carried out an LC11 inspection at the NRS Ltd Harwell site of exercise “Mars” on the 18 September 2024. ONR nominated site inspector lead the evaluation of the LC11 demonstration exercise supported by the Magnox Ltd internal regulator who conducted their evaluation concurrently. The exercise ‘Mars’ scenario was discussed and agreed in advance with the site to ensure that it provided a credible scenario sufficiently challenging to demonstrate the site emergency response capability.
ONR and NRS oversight reached a consensus that the emergency response was not capable to attend to the casualties due to excessive delays which in a real emergency could have resulted in a loss of life.
The site has agreed to take into account its emergency response performance as part of planning site activities and after thorough considerations of exercise ‘Mars. findings, establish an improvement programme culminating with a redemonstration of the site emergency response.
ONR has written to the dutyholder requesting by mid-November a plan of actions with milestones to demonstrate the improvement in the performance of the different element of the emergency response prior to a full demonstration.
The improvement work will be followed up through a Regulatory Issue which will be closed on the basis of an adequate emergency demonstration on completion of the improvement programme.
Conclusion
In my opinion, the dutyholder could not demonstrate the adequacy of it emergency arrangements for compliance with LC11 and meet the expectations of ONR guidance for LC 11. I therefore rated this inspection amber on the basis of the site low risk profile and concluded that improvements are needed as a matter urgency to ensure that the site can be in position to demonstrate an adequate response to an emergency situation. A regulatory issue (RI 12285) has been opened to follow up the closure of the improvements.