Avoiding the sun with some 'light' reading!

I’ve been enjoying myself keeping out of the sun by doing the nearest equivalent to watching paint dry reading the first and second quarter reports of the UK Office for Nuclear Regulation on various plants around the Irish Sea,

I generally confine myself to Heysham. Wylfa, Sellafield with a cursory glance at Chapelcross which is effectively a dead site (hope the pun is not apposite)! However I suppose the entire UK nuclear complex poses a threat.

There is little wheat in the ONR chaff although a couple of issues at Heysham and Sellafield stand out. Apparently they had a small fire at Heysham in June when the ONR inspection was underway so that must have added a touch of realism to the Inspectors day.

The ONR are the world's experts at understatement and although there are a couple of issues that would stand further enquiry my days of writing missives to the ONR and HSE are over and in any case in these days of Freedom of Information much touted by some vainglorious bodies on the Isle of Man a lot of what you get back is redacted or deliberately obtuse.

At the conclusion of my reading exercise I ponder if anyone in the Manx government engages with ONR after all with the exception of Brexit perhaps the biggest threats to the Isle of Man and Irish Sea area are the ‘piles of nuclear poo’ on the North Wales, Lancashire and Cumbria coasts.

Speaking of Brexit of course one of the consequences of the UK departure from the EU is the withdrawal from Euratom so that it potentially another safety conduit lost. The last I heard was that UK PM Theresa May said the UK would pay to stay in the organisation but as no one in the Conservative Party pays her much heed..who knows. I wonder if the Manx government have made any representations...again the answer is probably no!

Anyway roll on the next ONR quarterly reports although I have to confess after reading them they do induce more torpor than listening to Chris Thomas MHK in the portal!

Image: Sellafield a giant pile of nuclear poo on the Cumbria coast - you can see it on a ‘good’ day!

Bernard Moffatt