Union calls for urgent action to tackle safety at Sellafield

The GMB trade union has called on the government and nuclear authorities to take “urgent action” to address concerns over safety at Sellafield.

- Alex Lawson Anna Isaac

The union has written to the energy minister, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and Sellafi eld’s chief executive to demand greater investment in keeping the 11,000 employees at the vast nuclear rubbish dump in Cumbria safe.

Earlier this month, the Guardian revealed a catalogue of concerns over safety at the sprawling 2 sq mile site in north-west England.

Sources familiar with risk reports at the site have said they showed that more than 100 safety problems were a matter of serious regulatory concern. They included fi re safety deficiencies such as a lack of functioning alarms in parts of the site that contained radioactive material. There have been work stoppages owing to a lack of suitably qualified staff trained in nuclear safety and increasing numbers of contamination and radiation protection incidents.

The issues emerged in Nuclear Leaks, a year-long Guardian investigation into problems spanning cyber hacking and toxic workplace culture at Sellafield, which also revealed the site had a worsening leak from a huge silo of radioactive waste.