Vital project work leading return to workplaces
We have now successfully restarted all our major construction projects on the Sellafield site.
Across the Sellafield site, all COVID-19 arrangements continue.
This means that across the Sellafield site, teams are back working on building the structures and laying the infrastructure integral to our critical missions, all working under new COVID-19 arrangements.
The last 2 projects to welcome teams back to their construction sites were our Main Site Command Facility and our Security System Architecture Upgrade. Both are integral to keeping our site safe and secure in the decades to come.
None of our construction sites are running at full capacity due to COVID 19 arrangements and the ‘lead and learn’ approach we have taken.
But work has already started on working out how we ramp up numbers in a safe way with the right flexibility to allow the teams to maximise what they can achieve and overcome constraints.
Off-site, our projects offices in Warrington and Whitehaven were the first to reopen, acknowledging the issues around designers being unable to access high-spec machines to complete work needed on some of our most vital projects – the Sellafield Product and Residue Store Retreatment Plant, SIXEP Continuity Project and Replacement Analytical Project.
More office-based staff have now come back to the workplace in Banna Court and on the Sellafield site itself.
Head of projects Steve Harnwell said:
The Restart Cell team have gone from a period of high uncertainty to where we are today by working closely with our supply chain colleagues elsewhere in industry, to learn from their experience, taking their standards and aligning them to work with our approach at Sellafield.
Throughout all of this we have engaged closely with our workforce through the trade unions, and made sure everyone felt safe as they returned to work. A big part of this has been working closely with our workforce on those early restart projects, listening to their concerns and ideas and have developed solutions to address them.
All this has helped us progress at the right pace safely.
The work we have done now gives us the foundation to start the next phase ; which is to increase the numbers on our sites to achieve our ambition of back to pre-covid levels whilst increasing our productivity in a ‘new normal’ safely.