A TOP-LEVEL report setting out key nuclear milestones nationwide will be used as template for Sellafield to compile their own version.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) published its Mission Progress Report last month to shows what has been achieved so far and what is still left to do.

But the document released on July 4 provides an overview of the picture nationwide whereas the Sellafield version now underway will be site-specific.

Copeland Council’s Strategic Nuclear and Energy Board (SNEB) heard the company had “just started working” on their own document which will give a much more localised picture of the process.

It is hoped that using the Government department’s report as a “baseline” will help “standardise” the way the data is presented, making progress on clean-up in Cumbria easier to chart.

Work on the NDA document started around two years ago, with representatives describing it as an effort to “simplify a very complex story” and to make the information more “accessible”.

The report sets out several key milestones with the removal of Magnox fuel and the completion of re-processing work among the important targets, with the NDA due to complete its mission by 2025.

Over the next few months, the Government department will be looking step by step at the “risk” and “cost” involved in hitting their targets.

Sue Lawson, marketing and corporate communications manager at the NDA told the SNEB meeting that this would help the team develop a “much fuller picture” of the mission.

She also stressed that Sellafield’s development of its own report would allow nuclear chiefs and experts across the industry to better hold the company to account.

But David Moore, Copeland council’s nuclear portfolio-holder, said that the SNEB panel already received regular updates from Sellafield Ltd, holding them to account “almost on a quarterly basis”.

And the meeting heard that the NDA’s next Mission Statement Report is not due to be published until the end of March 2021.

Mr Moore welcomed the publication of the document, which he said had been “well-received” across the sector but he said that these updates should be more regular.

“If we are going to hold you to account, and that’s exactly what this is about, then I think it at least has to be annual,” he said.