By Alan Irving

Published at 11:06, Thursday, 14 June 2012

DRAWING up the Sellafield Plan – a blueprint of the way the nuclear site is going in the foreseeable future – was a prodigious feat but it has reaped a national PR award for the team which put it all together.

Winners all: The Sellafield Ltd, Nuclear Management Partners and NDA winning PR teams

The team – Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Sellafield Ltd, and Nuclear Management Partners – has won the Chartered Institute of Public Relations 2012 Excellence award for External Publication of the Year.

The Sellafield Plan brings to life the many work programmes on the Sellafield site in a way that is easy to use, update and understand, and was recognised as a real first for industry communications.

The Olympics provided the backdrop for the CIPR Excellence Awards held at the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane in London, with British Olympic medallist Colin Jackson compèring a star-studded event.

It featured other Olympians including Lord Coe, Sharron Davies, Mark Foster and Adrian Moorhouse. The specialist nuclear communicators beat off strong competition to make it to the finish line as Brian Hough (NDA), Emma Law (Sellafield Ltd) and Bill Anderton (NMP) were presented with the award in front of an 800-strong audience.

This was the winning verdict: “The sheer magnitude of this project first struck the judges, but it was the collaborative process, the strategic approach to its execution and its effective use of a relatively small budget that clearly took it over and above other entrants in this category. One aspect that impressed the judges was the ring binder approach, enabling the document to act in a unique way with each user. Overall the entry was felt to be a step change in the role of communications, with peers seeing it as a benchmark within their sector, highlighting the innovation of this entry.”

Jon Phillips, NDA director of communications, said: “The Sellafield Plan, which is also available online, is a clear demonstration of the openness and transparency for which the NDA, Sellafield and NMP are all committed and which is an essential building block for confidence in the industry.”

NDA Cumbria socio-economics manager Brian Hough said: “It’s a fantastic achievement and we were delighted that the judges recognised the sheer size and complexity of the task. So many people were involved in pulling the final document together that this award justifies all their hard work and the effort, commitment and importance we place in improving the way we communicate the progress of the decommissioning mission.”

Emma Law added: “Just to have been shortlisted for a CIPR Excellence Award was a huge honour. To then go on and win our category was a very proud moment.”

And Bill Anderton said: “For me the Sellafield Plan external publication is an amazing and truly unique document. It shows, at a glance almost, both the history and the lifetime of what is the most complex nuclear site in the world. It is a brilliant reference document – my Sellafield Bible.”

Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk