Meeting with Brett Dyson, Reading Emergency Planning Officer
There will be a NAG open meeting with Reading Emergency Planning Officer Brett Dyson at 7pm on Tuesday 23 October, Civic Centre, Reading. He will talk about the Off-Site Emergency Plan for AWE Burghfield and the recent report of safefy failures.
AWE Burghfield Safety Shortfalls
Following the NIS Report on Safety Concerns at AWE Burghfield (July 2007) further research resulted in a New Scientist article by Rob Edwards Sept 22 07.
"THE UK's nuclear bomb factory has been struggling to remedy as many as 1000 safety defects uncovered by the government's official watchdog. It is only allowed to stay open because the Ministry of Defence (MoD) says the work it does is vital for national defence.
The remarkable and, until now, secret story of the serious problems faced by the nuclear weapons complex at Burghfield, Berkshire, is revealed in 12 internal reports released by the UK's Nuclear Installations Inspectorate to New Scientist under freedom of information laws. For the past five years the NII has been trying to force Burghfield's operator, the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), to tackle 1000 "shortfalls" inspectors identified in its safety procedures. Yet an inspection in April 2007 found that more than 300 of them were still outstanding, and they will not now be completed by 27 September as promised.
The NII has criticised AWE's progress as …"
The complete article is 1185 words long.