The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority

In February 2011, our Radioactive Waste Management Directorate published a suite of reports comprising the generic Disposal System Safety Case for geological disposal of high level radioactive waste.

• Generic Disposal System Safety Case material published in February 2011

Under agreements established with the regulators, the Office for Nuclear Regulation and the Environment Agency, RWMD requested that they review this suite of reports.

The regulators agreed and in December 2011 they published the results of their review.

The joint regulatory review concluded that:

"We (the regulators) have identified no specific issues, that would prevent a safety case, capable of meeting transport, operational and environmental regulatory requirements, being met for a geological disposal facility, providing a suitable site is available."

• Regulator review December 2011

RWMD has now published a high level response to the regulatory review:

 Geological Disposal - Response to regulators' review of the generic Disposal System Safety Case suite of documents June 2012 (1Mb)

Bruce McKirdy, RWMD's Managing Director said:

"Our high level response addresses the main recommendations of the regulators' review. In addition, we have prepared individual responses to each recommendation made by the regulators and set out how we intend to address those recommendations in our future work."

"We propose to engage further with the regulators to discuss and agree how their recommendations will impact on our future work programme."

The generic Disposal System Safety Case presented an integrated safety assessment for the transport of wastes to a geological disposal facility, as well as the safety cases for the facility's construction, operation and closure and environmental safety in the long-term after it has been sealed and closed. The safety case is described as "generic" as it does not relate to any specific site for a facility. The process for selecting a site for geological disposal is being led by Government under its Managing Radioactive Waste Safely process based on voluntarism and partnership with potential host communities.