- Site: Dungeness B
- IR number: 22-030
- Date: May 2022
- LC numbers: 11
Executive summary
Purpose of Intervention
In accordance with the Office for Nuclear Regulation’s (ONR’s) Dungeness B (DNB) intervention plan, ONR performs a series of planned compliance inspections of identified licence conditions (LCs) and other applicable legislation, to ensure that DNB is meeting its legal requirements.
Interventions Carried Out by ONR
LC11 requires that “the licensee shall make and implement adequate arrangements for dealing with any accident or emergency arising on the site and their effects.
ONR carried out the following LC11 intervention:
- Observation of the annual Dungeness B level 1 demonstration emergency exercise
The intervention was performed in line with ONR’s guidance requirements (as described in our technical inspection guides.) in the areas inspected. The following guidance was used in this intervention:
- NS-INSP-GD-011 – On-site Emergency Arrangements
In addition, the following information sharing sessions were also held:
- Infrastructure strategy discussion
- Operations manager discussion
Explanation of Judgement if Safety System Not Judged to be Adequate
N/A as this was not a safety systems inspection.
Key Findings, Inspector’s Opinions and Reasons for Judgements Made
The scenario was a challenging scenario which appropriately tested all relevant aspects of the site emergency response and consisted of a simulated fuel route event, fire, casualties and an offsite radiological release.
Dungeness B demonstrated an appropriate sense of urgency in responding to the event and ONR observed that Dungeness B met the exercises objectives across all the locations observed in an effective manner. ONR observed the following locations/capabilities; central control room, emergency control centre, mustering, access control point, emergency teams, fire response, casualty management and damage repair.
As expected in any emergency exercise a number of areas for potential further improvement were identified and this detailed feedback has been provided to Dungeness. The areas for potential further improvement are minor and such that they do not warrant any associated regulatory issues.
Conclusion of Intervention
I judge that an inspection rating of Green (no formal action) is appropriate for Dungeness B’s level 1 emergency exercise. This is because I found that Dungeness B demonstrated that it can appropriately deal with an incident or emergency on the site. Further information on inspection ratings can be found in ONR’s general inspection guide.