Latest news with #Sellafield
BBC News
a day ago
- BBC News
Drink-driving Sellafield nuclear officer behaved 'discreditably'
A nuclear officer who hit a police car when he was caught drink-driving behaved "discreditably", a misconduct panel has Bennett was a police constable for the Civil Nuclear Constabulary based at Sellafield, Cumbria, when he was arrested at a McDonald's car park in Workington for being over the drink-drive admitted the offence when he appeared in court and was banned from driving for 20 months.A report published this week from a misconduct hearing found he would have been dismissed if he had not resigned before facing the panel. "He voluntarily went behind the wheel and alcohol was located within the vehicle. This was a deliberate act on his part," the report said."The panel found [it] amounted to discreditable conduct." Reversed into patrol car Mr Bennett was arrested on 18 January after a member of the public reported a vehicle driving erratically at Scaw Road in Workington.A police vehicle followed him to the McDonald's car park and parked behind Mr Bennett tried to reverse, officers enabled the blue lights, but there was a "minor collision" with the patrol car, the report Bennett, who was off-duty at the time, admitted he had been drinking and a half-empty bottle of whisky was found in his vehicle. When he was breathalysed he was found to have 76 micrograms of alcohol in 100ml of breath. The legal limit is 35."The reading in this case increased the severity of the matter," the panel said in its report."The panel felt that this in itself was disreputable, and the majority of the public in receipt of such information would believe likewise."Mr Bennett resigned three days after his arrest and did not attend the misconduct hearing. Follow BBC Cumbria on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Biggest cases heard in the magistrates' court this month
A MAN making threats with a sword in public, a drug-driver caught after failing to attend a drugs test at a nuclear site and a takeaway customer who assaulted a staff member with a pizza are among the defendants to appear before Workington Magistrates' Court this month. Sellafield worker stopped by police after failing to attend drugs test Lee Clarke (Image: Newsquest) A SELLAFIELD worker who failed to attend a drugs test at work was stopped by police after driving away from the nuclear site. Lee Clarke, 40, was found to be more than 10 times over the limit for Benzoylecgonine – the body breakdown product for cocaine – after being pulled over on Mirehouse Road in Whitehaven. Pamela Fee, prosecuting, said Clarke had been reported as leaving the Sellafield site and had failed to attend a drugs test on December 18 last year. Police stopped the Ford Ranger he was driving and he was required to provide a specimen of saliva. He was then arrested and taken to the police station. Glenn Scott jailed after making threats with sword in Egremont Glenn Scott (Image: Newsquest) A MAN who made threats to chop someone's head off while holding a large sword in the street later told police the blade 'was a stick'. Glenn Scott, 51, was jailed for 14 months following the incident in Egremont which was caught on a neighbour's doorbell camera. Pamela Fee, prosecuting, read a statement from a witness who said she had got home from work and went into her living room at 11am. She could see a male outside on the pavement, arguing with somebody. Sellafield drink-driver who crashed into wall returned to move car Kelly Atkinson (Image: Newsquest) A DRINK-driver who crashed into a garden wall and then returned to the scene to try and move her car has been banned from the roads for 30 months. Kelly Atkinson, 44, was more than three and a half times the drink-drive limit when she crashed while attempting to get an Audi vehicle onto her driveway on May 10. Pamela Fee, prosecuting, read a statement from a neighbour who said their daughter had come home from work at 11pm and said someone had crashed into the wall opposite. Maryport man who downloaded indecent images of young boys sentenced Martin Ballantyne (Image: Newsquest) A MAN who 'deliberately' searched for indecent images of young boys has been spared an immediate jail term. Martin Ballantyne, 27 entered guilty pleas to the following charges when he appeared in court last month: Making 29 Category A indecent images of a child – the most serious category of child abuse images Making 11 Category B indecent images of a child Making 17 Category C indecent images of a child Prosecutor Pamela Fee said police received information from an external law enforcement agency that indecent images of children had been accessed from Ballantyne's home address. Chattanooga: Takeaway worker assaulted by man throwing pizza Mark Hall (Image: Newsquest) A DRUNK takeaway customer who threw a pizza and salt and pepper chips at a member of staff was brought before a court for assault. Mark Hall, 50, threw the food items at a female staff member who was working behind the counter of the Chattanooga in Frizington on the evening of March 9. Pamela Fee, prosecuting, said Hall was in the shop and had ordered some food. In a statement read to the court, the victim said when Hall came into the shop, he said, 'you're a hunting child' and made reference to her uncle. She said she wasn't. Hall had thrown a chip at her, which hit the top of her head. Nuclear boss drove to hospital with foot injury after drinking wine Stephen Teasdale (Image: Newsquest) A NUCLEAR boss drove to hospital while more than twice the drink-drive limit after cutting his foot on a wine glass, a court heard. Stephen Teasdale, 46, was stopped by police while driving a Volkswagen Touareg along Homewood Road in Whitehaven while on his way to West Cumberland Hospital at 3.15am on March 16. Pamela Fee, prosecuting, said officers had been following the vehicle, which kept braking and was reducing speed from 30mph to 15 to 20mph. The vehicle was also seen crossing the white lines. CNC officer caught drink-driving in Workington Luke Eneas (Image: Newsquest) A NUCLEAR officer admitted he was drunk and would fail a breath test after being stopped by police due to his 'very poor' driving. Luke Eneas, 23, was driving a white Volkswagen Polo at Hall Brow in Workington at 5.45am on May 4 when he was noticed by police. Pamela Fee, prosecuting, said police followed the vehicle and the driving was described as 'very poor'. Officers stopped the vehicle at Calva Brow and saw Eneas was bleeding from the chin. He didn't put the handbrake on and the car rolled backwards. Sellafield employee caught drink driving at nuclear site Desmond Dixon (Image: Newsquest) A SELLAFIELD employee who drove to the nuclear site while under the influence of alcohol was caught after being confronted by a co-worker, a court heard. Desmond Dixon, 64, has been banned from driving for more than three years after a court heard he was over the alcohol limit when he arrived for work on April 7. Pamela Fee, prosecuting, said Dixon appeared to be under the influence of alcohol when he entered the nuclear site and was 'challenged' by a colleague. Drunk and disorderly asylum seeker before court Bako Hassanzada (Image: Newsquest) AN ASYLUM seeker was 'drunk' and 'not aware what was happening' when he approached people in the street and made threats to police, a court heard. Bako Hassanzada, 36, was 'intoxicated' and described as 'causing a nuisance' at Market Place in Egremont on the afternoon of May 12. Pamela Fee, prosecuting, said police had received reports of a 'foreign male' approaching people in the street. Members of the public were concerned about his welfare. Subscribe to the News & Star today and get the latest court news delivered straight to your device.
BBC News
25-06-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Cumbria's Sellafield and BAE job opportunities ‘worth move from city'
There is sometimes an assumption that the bigger the city, the better the job opportunities. But two people who left the bright urban lights for rural Cumbria speak of a very different reality. Jeremy Gilmour was working as a quantity surveyor in his home city of Birmingham back in the early 1990s when the recession hit. The only work his employer could offer him was as a contractor at Sellafield on the west coast of this was 200 miles up the road, and with a "pretty hideous" weekly commute, he felt he had little choice but to take 30 years on, however, he has climbed the ladder in the nuclear sector and taken part in what at the time was the biggest nuclear engineering job in Europe at the UK's most complex and challenging nuclear site."I don't think I would have gone near any of that if I'd stayed in the Midlands," he would have worked on "some lovely developments, some lovely office blocks, business parks or whatever" but nothing that "absolutely fascinates" him as much as what he does now. A similar fate was written in the stars for Tim Ripper, who had dreamed of designing and testing superyachts after his degree in naval architecture in he realised there was not enough demand for this he set out to find another good fit for his skills.A keen cyclist and kayaker, he knew he wanted to live somewhere that would also afford him an outdoor lifestyle, but Cumbria had not been among his options. "I was thinking, 'how do I use this degree I've got', and started to apply for various roles in naval architecture," Mr Ripper says."We were looking at opportunities elsewhere and we couldn't find anything really that gave us the same type of career opportunities and satisfaction, career development, that still would allow us to live close to the outdoors."With his wife working in Manchester, he initially considered moving to North Wales but then spotted an opening to join a graduate scheme at BAE in Barrow, working on nuclear submarines."What was fantastic about the opportunity in Cumbria is that it gave me the ability to go an work in a shipyard in a big heavy engineering environment, but also be really close to the Lakes," he says. With BAE and Sellafield employing more than 10,000 workers each directly, and thousands more engaged as contractors and supported through their supply chain, Cumbria plays a key role in the nuclear Gilmour says it offers a wealth of opportunities he would never have had, had he stayed in his native Birmingham, despite it being the second largest city in the UK. The nature of his job, he says, means he often works on "first of a kind" projects and gets to spend time at other nuclear plants around the UK. When the 58-year-old started to work at Sellafield, the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp) was being built. "At the time it was the biggest civil engineering job in Europe and back then it was worth £2bn," he played a big part in Sellafield's reprocessing operations for two decades but, now the site is being decommissioned, Mr Gilmour has seen the plant's distinctive skyline change on taking the iconic Windscale Piles apart, when this was never part of their design, was almost like operating in "a time capsule", he says. The towers were built as part of Britain's cold-war nuclear efforts and their filters, installed at the last minute, played a key role in avoiding a disaster when one of them caught fire in 1957."The history of them is fantastic, the innovation from the 1940s to the 1950s and the things they did then were incredible," says Mr Gilmour. Mr Gilmour also made the effort of cycling up Cold Fell one Sunday morning to witness the demolition of Calder Hall's cooling towers, part of the world's first full-scale nuclear power station and a very recognizable feature on the West Cumbrian horizon. "I saw it before you heard the explosion, because we were two or three miles away," he says."A puff of smoke and then we saw these cooling towers going down. It changed the skyline of the site in five minutes." As much as the physical changes, Mr Gilmour has had a hand in the evolution of nuclear strategy. He has worked with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) since it was created 20 years ago to oversee the clean-up of 17 nuclear sites across the country."I think I've probably done 10 quite different jobs during that time, all evolutions of the previous ones," he he works as head of community and economic development at the NDA, working on projects like the soon-to-be-opened Edge in Whitehaven - a new water activity centre funded with nuclear money. The chance of a "brilliant and varied" career was also something that encouraged Mr Ripper to settle in Cumbria. While he has been at BAE, he has worked in engineering, commissioning, operations and manufacturing, and has also spent time aboard the experience came full circle when the company's training academy opened in 2018 and gave him the chance to help train about 250 apprentices a year."Sometimes it can feel like a very out-on-a-limb part of the country but, actually, there are plenty of opportunities here - it's really exciting," he says. Because the 39-year-old's job involves the UK's defence, there are things about it he cannot freely discuss with friends and family."It's not like we're poring over top secret documents and reading top secret information, but there are certain things we wouldn't be allowed to share," he says."People like to ask questions like how fast can a submarine go and how deep can it go and it's stuff like that, but to be honest, most people in the business aren't actually privy to that information."He says his job provided the perfect marriage between working on submarines in a shipyard and living his best outdoor life with his wife and two family live in Eskdale - in the heart of the Lake District - and Mr Ripper says he loves to have the opportunity to take the children camping and walking whenever he wants. Mr Gilmour is also hooked on the "incredible scenery" but, coming to Whitehaven from landlocked Birmingham, there is something else he would find hard to give up."As a Midlander born and bred I still find seeing the sea every day just great," he says. "On a nice day there is just no better place to be."He and Mr Ripper have both found niche job satisfaction and a rural lifestyle they would not have had without moving to Mr Gilmour discovered something else important in the he arrived at Sellafield his wife, Joanne, was working in the office next door. Follow BBC Cumbria on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
Daily Mail
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Going Nuclear by Tim Gregory: Want to save the planet? GO NUCLEAR
Going Nuclear: How The Atom Will Save The World by Tim Gregory (Bodley Head £25, 384pp) Tim Gregory works in what he calls 'one of the most chemically exotic square miles on the planet'. He is a scientist at the UK's National Nuclear Laboratory at Sellafield. So, it is no surprise that his new book offers a deeply researched and mostly persuasive argument in favour of nuclear power and its benefits. If we want to renounce fossil fuels and clean up our energy systems, 'splitting atoms of uranium inside nuclear reactors is our best bet at reaching net zero by 2050'. Yet, as he acknowledges, profound suspicion of the nuclear industry is rooted in the public mind. And, in what he sees as an ironic contradiction, those people who are most concerned about climate change are the very ones who are least supportive of nuclear power. This anxiety was not always so widespread. In the 1950s, nuclear power was often seen as the future we should happily embrace. In Britain, Calder Hall, the country's first atomic power station, was opened by Queen Elizabeth II 'with pride'. The town of Workington became one of the first in the world where people's washing machines, record players and other electrical appliances were driven by nuclear electricity. It was not only the Queen who was enthused by the then new technology. Gregory tells the oddly charming story of Muriel Howorth, who became a staunch advocate of nuclear power at the age of 62 after reading a book she'd borrowed from her local library. She went on to found the Ladies' Atomic Energy Club and to write a pantomime called Isotopia, which included characters such as Isotope, Neutron and Atom Man. In 1950, it was staged in London with members of the Ladies' Atomic Energy Club playing all the roles. She had hopes of a performance at the Albert Hall but, sadly, this was never to be. A 21st-century Muriel Howorth seems unlikely to emerge. Nuclear power has lost the glamour it may have possessed in the 1950s. It is more likely today to elicit alarm and anxiety. Gregory puts much of contemporary worry about the nuclear industry down to what he calls 'radiophobia' – an irrational fear of radiation. Popular culture has played its part in warping society's perception of the subject. The idea of atomic bombs has become entwined with our notions of the nuclear industry. Gregory endeavours to get beyond the mushroom clouds of our imagination. As he points out, all kinds of unexpected objects are radioactive to some extent. Potassium-40 emits beta and gamma radiation. Bananas and potatoes both contain potassium, so are therefore radioactive. 'Biology,' he notes, 'unfolds against a background of radioactivity.' All of us spend our lives 'bathed in radiation'. The only way we could avoid it would be by adopting a highly impractical programme of not eating, drinking or even breathing. 'You can't have radiation-free anything,' Gregory writes. 'Background radiation is about as ubiquitous and as harmless as it gets.' What about the dangers of nuclear waste and the difficulties of disposing of it? Gregory argues that these are greatly exaggerated. The paraphernalia in his lab – gloves, test-tubes, biros – is all classified as nuclear waste because it comes from Sellafield. Most of it is 'far less radioactive than a banana'. 'Low-level' nuclear waste accounts for just one per cent of the radioactivity in all nuclear waste but 87 per cent of its volume. The most dangerous type of 'high-level' waste, by contrast, represents 0.1 per cent of the total volume of nuclear waste but contains 95 per cent of its radioactivity. All the high-level waste from the past 70 years of the nuclear industry would fit inside a medium-sized concert hall. Figures such as these may well be reassuring, but Gregory is on less sure ground when he turns to the major disasters that have struck the industry over the decades. Again he turns to statistics to argue that we should not be over-anxious. 'Nuclear's safety record is blotted by a small number of rare, high-visibility events,' he acknowledges, but it's 'about as safe as wind and solar, and it's tens or hundreds times safer than fossil fuels'. Air pollution from the latter kills as many people every six hours, Gregory states, as nuclear power has ever done. He acknowledges the seriousness of Chernobyl, which he describes unequivocally as 'the worst disaster in the history of nuclear power', but he argues that we should not overestimate its long-term effects. The accident at Chernobyl happened because of a combination of factors – an unusual design of reactor, operators who broke the rules, Soviet-era corruption – that is extremely unlikely to occur again. He also uses an array of statistics and scientific studies to show fears of ongoing health risks are exaggerated. A study from 2019 found that cancer rates in regions of Ukraine close to Chernobyl were no higher than the national average. Not everyone will buy Gregory's take on Chernobyl, but he's more convincing on the 2011 Fukushima disaster, where an earthquake triggered a tsunami that caused three nuclear units to explode. Twenty thousand people died due to the natural disasters but only one person died as a result of the radiation, and a UN scientific committee found no evidence that the radiation caused an increase in any type of cancer. Arguments over the dangers of nuclear power will continue. What seems inarguable is its potential. There is, Gregory writes, 'as much nuclear energy in a gram of uranium as there is chemical energy in more than a tonne of coal'. If you powered a lightbulb with a gram of coal, it would give you 15 minutes of light; a gram of uranium would light up the bulb for 30 years. As he bluntly states, 'Net zero is impossible without nuclear power.' Renewables such as wind and solar have important roles to play but alone they cannot possibly satisfy a society that needs on-demand electricity. And the demand is growing. Europe today generates a fifth of its electricity from nuclear. It's the biggest source of emissions-free electricity, bigger than solar and wind combined. Gregory reports on what he calls 'the flatpack furniture of the nuclear world' – small modular reactors that take up the space of 5.5 football pitches. He envisages a future in which every large town will have one of these smaller reactors and there will be several in every major city worldwide. 'Nuclear,' he writes, 'will become routine.' Gregory is passionate in his belief that nuclear power will solve the world's energy problems. Not all readers will be so evangelical but his book presents a strong, carefully argued case for his ideas.
BBC News
19-06-2025
- General
- BBC News
Plans to demolish turbine hall at Sellafield site
Proposals to demolish a building that was once part of the world's first full-scale nuclear power station have been Council is considering plans to pull down the Calder Hall turbine hall A (CHTHA) building on the Sellafield building is redundant and has "reached the end of its useful life", the application stated, adding: "Sellafield is currently undertaking option studies into future development options."Hailed as the dawn of the atomic age, Calder Hall produced electricity for 47 years and stopped generating power in 2003. Opening in 1956, Calder Hall consisted of four Magnox reactors, two turbine halls and four cooling towers were demolished using explosives in 2007 as part of the plant's decommissioning process. The overall size of the turbine hall is 245ft (75m) long by 121ft (37m), with the switch room extending a further 33ft (10m) out from the east side of the overall are steam turbines and condensers inside which are supported on reinforced concrete platforms, according to the demolition application covering letter, the Local Democracy Reporting Service the potential future redevelopment at the site, they proposed removing the building superstructure and retaining the existing concrete foundations."Any future development proposals will be presented to relevant stakeholders and will be subject to formal planning application and consent from the local planning authority," the letter added. Follow BBC Cumbria on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
