No more initiatives

摘要

Nuclear fuel has been made at Springfields in northern England since 1948. Now part of BNFL Westing-house, it still makes all the fuel for nuclear reactors in the UK, except the most recent reloads for the PWR at Sizewell. But times have been changing: the plant is facing up to the impending closure of most of the UK's nuclear units between now and 2030. The culture of the site has changed dramatically over the past 15 years. "We have moved from a civil service/cost-plus culture," said head of site Peter Richards. "There was always a lot of expertise― we dealt with different fuel designs for all the stations, for example. Add to that very cautious customers ― nothing must stand in the way of generation ― and you can see we had a culture of comfort, although never complacency." Springfields has had to respond to a two-thirds reduction in the workforce and the sprawling site is currently decommissioning and dismantling buildings at a rate of one a month.