Sellafield Ltd is seeking full planning permission for land preparation works.

The work would involve the bulk excavation and reprofiling of an area on the West Cumbrian site to create a serviced development platform for future development.

The intention is to create a platform to allow future delivery of the Lightly Shielded Store 1 (LSS1). This will be the subject of a future planning application and judged on its own merits. It is Sellafield Ltd’s intention to submit a planning application for LSS1 in 2021.

The application reads: “Sellafield Ltd’s purpose is to create a clean and safe environment for future generations.

“To do this we must mitigate the major national risk on the Sellafield site and so high hazard risk reduction remains our number one priority. Sellafield Ltd is committed to providing safe and secure storage capacity for arisings from operations, high hazard risk reduction activities and broad-front decommissioning on the Sellafield Site.”

Operation of the store and future operations to empty and decommission the store will be regulated by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and the Environment Agency (EA) in the coming years.

This week, the Cumbrian nuclear site received an improvement notice following a number of electrical safety incidents. The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has served the notice on Sellafield Ltd, which comes after multiple electrical events became the subject of enquiries and investigations throughout recent months.

In December, the company was fined £320,000 following an electrical event in April 2020, which resulted in a worker sustaining serious injuries. None of the incidents had any impact on the public or the environment, and all were reported to ONR by Sellafield in line with requirements.

Dr Mina Golshan, ONR deputy chief inspector, said: “The improvement notice will require Sellafield Ltd to make improvements to the training and supervision of staff carrying out electrical work across the whole site.

“We have identified these issues to be the root causes of the majority of recent events.

“The notice will also require that any lessons learned from these incidents are applied to all areas of the site where electrical work is carried out.

Sellafield Ltd must comply with the notice by January 15 2022.

A spokesperson for ONR added: “While we are satisfied that Sellafield Ltd is currently meeting the high standards expected with regards to nuclear safety, as a regulator we require sustained improvements in the area of electrical safety.”

A Sellafield Ltd spokesman said: “Safety and security are our overriding priorities.

“Sellafield is a safe site, and we work tirelessly to ensure this remains the case.

“We acknowledge that aspects of our management of electrical work have fallen below the standards we would expect.

“We take this extremely seriously, and we have already begun implementing lessons learned from these events.

“This includes a detailed electrical improvements programme and an electrical safety integration programme, designed to deliver company-wide performance improvements.

“We will continue to work closely with ONR to ensure the requirements of the improvement notice are met in full.”

Mr Hudson spent almost three weeks in hospital after he was blown against a wall on April 24 last year.

At Carlisle’s magistrates’ court, Sellafield Limited admitted failing to ensure his safety.

Prosecuting for the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), Craig Morris outlined how the worker was injured.

Mr Hudson was asked to work on high-voltage kit which he was not trained for and without adequate supervision.

But as he did the work, he contacted a live current and was blown against a wall, suffering serious burns.

There were no warning notices on the cable box he worked on about 'live conductors' and he removed one panel.

Mr Morris said: “He came into contact with the live current and was thrown back against the substation wall. His eyelashes were burnt off and his shirt caught fire.”

Mr Hudson managed to beat out the flames and called for help.

He was hospitalised in Newcastle with 15 to 20 per cent burns on his body, face, chest, arms and hip.

District Judge Temperley noted that Mr Hudson had rarely undertaken 'intrusive work' on high-voltage equipment and was given 'inadequate' instructions and no meaningful supervision on the day he was injured. Nor was he given adequate training for the task he was asked to do; and nor was there adequate warning on the equipment.

The judge ordered that Sellafield must pay prosecution costs of £12,000.