Row over plans to reform groups at nuclear sites.

Rob Edwards The Ferret, January 23, 2022,

New guidelines which campaigners say could benefit communities around nuclear sites have been boycotted by a UK Government nuclear agency.

Internal documents seen by The Ferret reveal that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has rejected proposed reforms because they had caused “a great deal of bad feeling”

Guidelines aimed at making local meetings about safety at nuclear sites across the UK more transparent, accountable and representative were put forward in a nuclear industry report.

There are 29 licensed nuclear sites around the UK, six of them in Scotland. They include nuclear power stations operating and being decommissioned, nuclear submarine bases, waste and processing plants.

All of the sites have stakeholder or local liaison groups aimed at keeping local communities informed about events, including shutdowns, safety incidents and radiation leaks. But they differ greatly in how they are run…………………………..

In 2017 the 50-strong group of nuclear-free local authorities in the UK published a report questioning whether the stakeholder and local liaison groups were “fit for purpose”. It concluded that there was an “urgent need” to reform them.

This prompted the nuclear industry’s Safety Directors’ Forum, which brings together senior managers from all the civil and military nuclear sites, to commission a report. It was researched and written by the industry’s industry’s Young Nuclear Professionals’ Forum.

The resulting “Good Practice Guide” was circulated in November 2021. “Nuclear sites often have a reputation of being opaque, secretive and unwilling to engage with the public,” it said.

“This negative reputation is actively damaging, from open opposition to the site’s existence to a general lack of understanding. Active engagement is key to undoing this, the nuclear industry must be open and honest.”

The report argued that local liaison groups at several unidentified nuclear sites had “no accountability”. This included “no terms of reference being in place, no clear action management process, inadequate minute taking and infrequent meetings.”

It pointed out that while some meetings were open to the public, others were not. Some groups only invited “selected stakeholders” and “diversity and inclusion is not always encouraged”.

Some of the groups didn’t have websites. “Meetings are not always accessible and, in some cases, not comprehensible due to the extensive use of acronyms, particularly for those who do not work in the nuclear industry,” the report added.

The report recommended that the groups should all have websites, clear and published constitutions and a “diverse range of stakeholders”. There should be a co-chair independent of the industry and members of the public should be allowed to ask questions.

correspondence released under freedom of information law has disclosed how the report has upset the NDA and some of the existing groups………………………………… https://theferret.scot/nuclear-sites-reforms-row/