Significant safety problems have been exposed in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) response to an accident involving nuclear weapons after an emergency exercise in East Anglia last year.

Had the exercise been a real emergency, civilian emergency personnel would have been placed at risk from explosions and radioactive contamination as a result of misunderstandings about key safety information because a specialist MoD nuclear emergency response team “did not emphasise the hazards adequately” and gave “insufficient priority” to liaison with emergency services, according to official post-exercise reports.

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The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) has published the report of its internal inquiry into the fire which broke out in a building containing high explosives at the AWE Aldermaston site in August 2010, highlighting a number of safety failings.

The inquiry into the fire, chaired by Peter McIntyre, an independent member of AWE's Nuclear Safety Committee, concluded that the production operation that led to the fire “was not carried out in accordance with appropriate process instructions” and had not been authorised to take place on the day of the fire.  Failure to comply with operating instructions, explosives safety orders, and planned work schedules “further weakened the barriers to an event involving explosives”.

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Nuclear Information Service is calling for the Royal Navy's nuclear propulsion programme to be included within the scope of the Health and Safety Executive's review of the UK nuclear industry following the Fukushima nuclear accident.

The UK's nuclear submarines are powered by pressurised water reactors (PWR) but, according to an official report, the Navy's nuclear reactor programme “currently falls short of current relevant good practice.  

NIS has written to Mike Weightman, HM Chief Inspector of Nuclear Installations, to point out that the Navy's nuclear programme is probably an area of higher risk than the civil nuclear sector yet receives far less scrutiny of its operations, and asking for it to be included in the review to learn lessons from the Fukushima accident which the government has requested. ... more

The Nuclear Information Service (NIS) has written to the Health and Safety Executive calling for an independent inquiry into the recent fire at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) Aldermaston.

According to a report from the BBC a fire broke out in a building within the explosives area of the site late in the evening on 3rd August. AWE has stated that there were “no radiological implications” as a result of the fire, but a number of local residents were evacuated from their homes to overnight hotel accommodation.

AWE report that one member of staff was injured in the blaze, and road closures in the area following the fire caused traffic chaos during the Wednesday morning rush-hour.

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Download NIS's special briefing on West Berkshire Council's new emergency plan for the Atomic Weapons Establishment and read about the full consequences of a major accident at one of Berkshire's nuclear weapons factories. ... more

A radioactive contamination incident at the Atomic Weapons Establishment Aldermaston in June 2009 was hushed up by site managers, fuelling calls for greater honesty and transparency about operations at the factory. ... more

Two stories on the safety failings at the Faslane base.

Devastating admissions about one of Britain’s most significant nuclear sites are disclosed in MoD documents released under the Freedom of Information Act...

Safety failings are "a recurring theme" at the nuclear submarine base at Faslane. The transfer of three Trafalgar class submarines to Faslane is causing public alarm on the Clyde...

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