As we look forward to 2018 it is worth reflecting on some of our significant achievements in recent months and the changes we have seen at ONR as we continue to provide efficient and effective regulation of the nuclear industry, holding it to account on behalf of the public.

Firstly we bid a farewell to Richard Savage in the latter part of the year and it has been my pleasure to welcome Mark Foy as new Chief Nuclear Inspector. Mark has worked his way through the ranks at ONR following his career in industry and he has certainly hit the ground running in his first couple of months in post.

In terms of ONR’s board, our Chair, Nick Baldwin collected his CBE for services to industry and he has been joined by two new board members, Sarika Patel and Sir Simon Lister. Sarika has a background in the public and private sector business and technology industry and Sir Simon has a distinguished career in nuclear defence.

The two join at a key point in ONR’s journey. Three years after investiture, ONR’s role is evolving as Britain prepares to exit the European Union and develop its own civil nuclear safeguards regime.

In addition ONR is preparing for the new challenges ahead as the Government has announced funding for research and development in new advance modular technology as it seeks to ensure Britain can “keep the lights on” by committing to more nuclear power. ONR is responding by growing its workforce and up-skilling its staff with new technology to ensure we are in a position to regulate technological advancements across the industry and just last month we opened the doors to our very own training academy that will help provide value for money and improved access to training for all ONR staff.

In terms of our regulation, a major step forward in decommissioning work at Sellafield has taken place under our enhanced regulatory attention. The most significant of which is work to cut retrieval holes into the Pile Fuel Cladding Silo to allow historic nuclear waste previously to be removed for safe storage – a significant step in the decommissioning process. There has been much more happening at Sellafield that you can read about here.

In December, ONR and environmental regulators, approved the design of Hitachi-GE’s UK ABWR reactor, following the completion of an in-depth assessment. This means we are satisfied that the reactor meets regulatory expectations on safety and security at this stage of the process. This is a significant step in our regulation of the overall plan to construct this type of reactor in the UK. There are still more regulatory processes before the reactor can be built, but nevertheless this marks a significant milestone in the project.

Looking ahead to 2018, ONR will be launching a consultation on a new code of practice on regulations relating to emergency planning and response aspects of the Basic Safety Standards Directive and looking for more opportunities to engage the public in our regulation. I’ll keep you updated in future editions.