Sellafield Ltd. has complied with an improvement notice from 2015, stemming from safety shortfalls related to operating instructions at the Magnox Reprocessing Separation Plant, the U.K. Office for Nuclear Regulation announced Friday.
The announcement did not provide specific details, other than to say that there were a number of issues related to following operating instructions at the facility. There was no radiation release or other harmful event at the plant, but ONR increased regulatory oversight, issuing a formal improvement notice. More than a year of heightened regulatory oversight followed, and ONR has since designated the plant as being in compliance.
“We served this Improvement Notice after identifying weaknesses in one area of the multiple safety barriers in place at the Magnox Reprocessing Separation Plant,” Chief Nuclear Inspector Richard Savage said in a statement. “It is pleasing that the detailed improvement plan that was introduced in response to our legal Notice has achieved the improvements we required, and that these have been delivered on time by the licensee. We will of course continue to regulate this plant as part of our ongoing scrutiny of the Sellafield site, and our broader public duty to ensure the nuclear industry maintains the high standards required by the law.”
