How Hinkley Point C (HPC) does security, while letting the building work flow on Britain’s first nuclear power station for a generation, was the topic for the latest Security Institute seminar on Wednesday, July 11.
Pictured are some of the seminar guests on the viewing platform, giving a bird’s eye view of the massive project in north Somerset, that’s employing thousands of workers and has already taken several years and is due to take several more; with electricity generating by two EPR (European Pressurised Reactors) and de-commissioning due to take up the rest of the century.
Frank Cannon, Site Security Manager, was the day’s host. His work at his previous job in oil and gas in Kazakhstan was featured in Professional Security magazine in February 2017, making a security culture including non-security staff, in several languages. Similarly HPC security is about doing things securely, rather than ‘security’, so that security, like safety, fits in with the project – which has to run to a timetable, accommodate local wildlife, process various contract workers, besides mitigate physical security risks such as protesters, and the more banal risks that can come with any large body of people, such as a fake banknote passed in the canteen. For while Hinkley Point C will become a piece of critical national infrastructure, under armed guard by the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, it’s not generating electricity yet and is meanwhile a building site, open to the elements.
The seminar also heard from Al McBride, G4S Accounts Director, on the security contractor’s side; and Institute chief exec Rick Mounfield. G4S in July 2015 won a multi-million-pound ten-year contract to provide construction security services; and provides facilities management services.
Like any other visitors, attenders saw for themselves the security and safety, even before approaching the perimeter; typically visitors park miles from Hinkley Point, at ‘park and ride’ car parks near Bridgwater, the nearest town, and are bussed in like workers, to reduce traffic around Hinkley Point itself, for green-sustainability besides security reasons.
The security and risk management at Hinkley Point C, run by the energy generator EDF and with some 60 or more ‘tier one’ contractors, including most of the big names in construction, the likes of Bouygues, Balfour Beatty, Kier, and Laing O’Rourke, is featured in the July 2019 print issue of Professional Security magazine; and the next two. The July issue also features the UK nuclear regulator the ONS and how it treats security (including cyber security).
For the previous Institute seminar, on business traveller security and safety, run with International SOS and Control Risks at their Chiswick, west London offices, see the July issue of the magazine. For upcoming Institute events visit the Institute website.
