Abstract
This exchange between Mr Brooke and Stephen Reed, Mayor of Harrisburg Pennsylvania, the community most immediately affected by the notorious TMI incident encapsulates the motivations behind much of the examination before the Sizewell B Inquiry with regard to the safety aspects of the CEGB’s application. The Inspector and his Assessors knew that the Inquiry could not examine the safety case in depth (261, 99A). They had neither the resources nor the expertise to do that. In any case, the public inquiry is not designed to undertake such a task, which is the function of the statutory licensing proceedings. The Generating Board itself only chose to present what it called the ‘highlights’ of its mammoth documentation on safety aspects in its Statement of Case and Proofs of Evidence. The totality of the safety case ran to 26 volumes and over three hundred supporting documents. Yet these were for only one stage, the pre-construction safety review, of what is essentially a continuing and evolving process (CEGB, P.10, 3).
Q. ‘Mr Reed,’ I want you to understand that the Chief Project Director for the Sizewell B PWR [Mr Brian George] among his many other chores in preparing this project has had to endure I think at least nine days of being questioned by me on this Public Inquiry.
A. ‘No, [not] until after the accident.’ [Laughter] (296, 44F–G)
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© 1988 Timothy O’Riordan, Ray Kemp and Michael Purdue
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O’Riordan, T., Kemp, R., Purdue, M. (1988). Safety and Public Trust. In: Sizewell B. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07904-9_7
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