Sellafield Ltd employs approximately 12,000 staff and is located on the West Cumbrian coast adjacent to the Irish Sea on the western outskirts of the Lake District National Park.
The site has been operational since the 1940s and led the development of the UK’s nuclear industry, from the production of plutonium for the country’s nuclear deterrent programme through to the development of nuclear power generation.
The site is home to Calder Hall, the world’s first commercial nuclear power station which operated between 1956 and 2003. Since the closure of Calder Hall and the three Windscale Reactors (Windscale Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor, Windscale Pile 1 and Windscale Pile 2) electricity is no longer generated at the site.
The focus of Sellafield Ltd is now on the remediation and clean-up of the hundreds of nuclear and non-nuclear facilities across the site; safe and secure storage of special nuclear materials; and the safe retrieval of nuclear waste from the legacy ponds and silos, for storage in modern facilities.
Hazard and risk reduction at Sellafield is both a national decommissioning priority and one of our top regulatory priorities.
The notice was served in July 2024 after the hazardous chemical, nickel nitrate, was found outside of a glovebox area.
Representatives from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Urenco UK Ltd, NNB GenCo and Rolls-Royce Submarines Ltd were among the delegates at the Royal Society headquarters in London
Following an ONR prosecution, the Cumbrian licensee admitted information technology security failings during a four year period, between 2019 and 2023.
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