Europe’s Most Hazardous Building? | Inside Sellafield | Retro Documentary from 1996
Controversy surrounds the British nuclear site at Sellafield. Punctuated by crisis after crisis, including a series of disastrous leaks, operational inadequacies and management cover-ups, the true story is told for the first time by a former company director.
The Sellafield nuclear site is Britain’s most controversial industrial complex. Built in the 50s to manufacture Plutonium for atomic weapons, the company’s history has been a chequered one, punctuated by crisis after crisis. The 70s and 80s were marked by a series of disastrous leaks of radioactive material from Sellafield, much of it ending up in the Irish Sea. Such was the concern over operational inadequacies that the plant was threatened with closure unless they cleaned up their act within a year. Management secrecy was a major problem. They attempted to cover up many of the leaks, hiding them from the public and political gaze.
There were plans to build a new reprocessing site, costing £2.85 billion, to turn the site into the world’s nuclear dustbin. But at a crucial time, when the Government was about to give its approval, it was discovered that a major leak had been hushed up. The Government refused to grant its consent, and put the plan to what at the time became Britain’s longest running inquiry.
After continued opposition the new plant, Thorp, opened in 1994, but its performance has fallen far short of what was expected, and it is feared it will never make the profits the company had forecast.
Inside Sellafield takes a sometimes caustic look at the performance of the management and the site with inside information from a company director. It talks with many of the principal figures, gives a rare insight into the mistakes and errors of judgement made at one of the world’s few nuclear reprocessing plants, and questions the need for a civil operation like this.
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