In August Devonport Royal Dockyard Ltd (DRDL) were fined £666,667 plus costs of £27,611 for breaches of crane regulations over an incident where a stack of crane weights narrowly missed a worker. The prosecution was brought by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), who are responsible for conventional Health and Safety as well as nuclear safety at nuclear licensed sites. During a hearing in July, DRDL pleaded guilty to the charge.
During the incident, in September 2018, a stack of crane test weights became detached and fell towards a worker who had to jump out of the way. In a statement, ONR said the worker “narrowly escaped serious injury”. A video of the incident can be seen on the BBC website.
The incident followed a series of crane safety failures over a five week period in May and June 2017, which culminated in ONR issuing a safety improvement notice to DRDL. The notice was considered closed in December 2017. DRDL remains under enhanced regulatory attention from the ONR and has a safety improvement plan in place which is intended to move them into ordinary regulatory attention.