Hunterston decommissioning bosses have provided assurances over two safety incidents which were discovered in the ‘A’ station.

A quarterly report to site stakeholders group members provided a recent update on safety issues which included details of both issues which were discovered and have since been speedily repaired.

It also revealed that robotics technology was being ditched in favour of manual labour in the importing and exporting of waste packages.

This comes as the former 'A' site is celebrating a decade of delivery with over 2,100 tonnes of solid radioactive waste – the equivalent weight of 153 Big Ben bells - have been retrieved and safely stored at Hunterston A.

The report to Hunterston Site Stakeholders Group came from ‘A’ director Mark Blackley.

He said: ”There had been two safety incidents which were highlighted within the report. Both related to fire safety. A small hole was found in the walls of the fire protected route for those who may need to evacuate the Reactor 1 building.

“A fire door didn’t close properly in the pond changing room. This problem seems to be caused by wood swelling under certain conditions. Risk of fire in the reactor buildings is low.

“Storage of combustible materials are kept to a minimum and sources of ignition are limited. A safety demonstration exercise is planned for next week.”

A spokesperson for Nuclear Restoration Services, said: "We routinely report all defects as incidents.

“The fire safety events mentioned were not associated with a fire but were minor defects, one was a small penetration in a fire escape stairwell and the other was a faulty closer on a fire door.

“Both items were quickly repaired and wouldn’t have impacted on safety.”

Also contained with the report to Hunterston Site Stakeholders Group, which includes community council representatives from Largs, Millport and Fairlie, it was revealed that Hunterston B Station intend to shut down their cooling water pumps which discharge through the discharge to sea line for both the A site and B Station.

A spokesperson stated: “When these pumps are shut down, an alternative method will be required to discharge effluent to sea.

“This alternative method will require a permit variation which has been submitted to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. SEPA have indicated that there will be a public consultation on this permit variation. Future discharge levels will also be within the permitted levels of the revised permit.”

Hunterston ‘A’ have also revealed their decision to ditch robotics technology.

Largs and Millport Weekly News: The final box of solid waste being sealed at Hunterston A to mark a decade of delivery and a major milestone Over 2,100 tonnes of solid radioactive waste – the equivalent weight of 153 Big Ben bells - have been retrieved and safely stored at Hunterston A.Robotics has the potential to make that step change for deployment in harsh environments. The final box of solid waste being sealed at Hunterston A to mark a decade of delivery and a major milestone Over 2,100 tonnes of solid radioactive waste – the equivalent weight of 153 Big Ben bells - have been retrieved and safely stored at Hunterston A.Robotics has the potential to make that step change for deployment in harsh environments. (Image: NRS)

The KUKA robot was designed to import and export the waste packages remotely without the presence of operators in the waste encapsulation plant.  

The report said: "Experience gained when filling the waste packages has shown that the radiation levels are much lower than anticipated.

"Because of this it has been decided that that the import and export can be done more efficiently by operators without incurring any significant radiation dose and within the highly regulated permitted levels. "

Work is ongoing to determine the course of action to achieve the decommissioning of two reactor buildings at Hunterston A.

A survey is currently being carried out to determine the safest and most efficient way to dismantle the pipework and other steelwork within Reactor buildings. This survey is the first step in the decommissioning of the Reactor buildings.

The reactor roofs are being repaired and sealed to prevent the ingress of rainwater. This project started in 2022 and will be complete within the next two months.

Hunterston A nuclear decommissioning site holds the largest inventory of solid nuclear waste across all the NRS sites.

This waste consists of contaminated metallic components, debris removed from spent fuel elements and 30,000 fuel element graphite sleeves from when the site was generating low carbon electricity between 1964 and 1999.