Regulation aims to ensure that all radioactive wastes are managed safely with no unacceptable risks to people or the environment.
Safety and security regulation
The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) is responsible for regulating safety and security at nuclear licensed sites across the UK.
ONR undertakes the following activities:
- Permissioning inspection – ONR assesses safety cases to ensure that sites understand potential hazards and properly control them before activities can be licenced.
- Compliance inspection – ONR checks that licensees comply with their licence conditions through planned inspections.
- Enforcement – ONR undertakes a full spectrum of enforcement activities, from the provision of advice through to prosecution.
- Influence – ONR works to encourage improvements in areas that are difficult to regulate. These are safety culture, leadership and vision.
Environmental regulation
In the UK, the environmental regulators are the Environment Agency (EA), Natural Resources Wales (NRW) and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA).
The environmental regulators:
- enforce laws and regulations that aim to protect human health and the environment
- authorise and control the disposal of radioactive waste into the air, water and land
- regulate nuclear sites under the Environmental Permitting Regulations (in England and Wales) or the Radioactive Substances Act (in Scotland)
- issue consents for non-radioactive environmental activities
In the UK, the environmental regulators aim to:
- establish and maintain control over the storage, use and security of radioactive materials;
- control the management of radioactive waste accumulation and disposal. This ensures the radiological impact on the public and the environment is as low as reasonably achievable; and
- ensure operators make appropriate financial provisions for reuse, recycling or disposal of high activity sealed radioactive sources.
These objectives apply to all non-nuclear users of radioactive materials such as hospitals, universities and industrial radiographers.
For nuclear site licence holders, the environmental regulators regulate the disposal of radioactive wastes. The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) regulates the keeping and use of radioactive materials and accumulation of radioactive wastes. The environmental regulators work closely with ONR in the regulation of nuclear sites.
Find out more about the Environment Agency’s role in nuclear regulation in England
Find out more about Natural Resources Wales’s role in nuclear regulation in Wales
Find out more about the Scottish Environment Protection Agency’s role in nuclear regulation in Scotland
Nuclear site licences
The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) operates a licensing process to assure the safety of nuclear installations in the UK.
A nuclear site licence is a legal document issued by ONR. It contains site-specific information, such as the licensee’s address and the location of the site, and defines the number and type of installations permitted. Such installations include nuclear power stations, research reactors, nuclear fuel manufacturing and reprocessing facilities, and radioactive waste stores.
Any site that would like to build or operate such installations must apply for a nuclear site licence. ONR grants licences once it is satisfied that:
- robust safety cases have been developed by the site; and
- sites can demonstrate that they understand and can properly control any hazards.
ONR may include extra conditions to support safe working at the site.
The nuclear site licence lasts for an indefinite period. Providing there are no significant changes to activities on site, it can cover the entire lifecycle of a site.
ONR must take enforcement action if licensees fail to meet the safety and security standards required by law. ONR has a range of enforcement powers, from providing advice to instigating court proceedings.