PIN Peer Review of Initial Site Evaluations

The Consultant’s team should consist of a minimum of two peer reviewers. The peer reviewers should be independent of the Employer’s work to develop the ISE and the associated permit applications.

Give the novel nature of the ISE and associated permit application, direct experience of the staged regulation guidance and ISE development is therefore not possible. The peer reviewers should have significant (10 years +) international experience of the development of Environmental Safety Cases for geological disposal facilities and the associated regulatory requirements.

The Consultant should describe in their tender how the skills and experience of their team will benefit the peer review process and overall quality of the ISE submissions. We are looking for Suppliers to provide views on:

· Firm bidding intention · The Contract Technical Specification (CTS)

· Availability and feasibility of the procurement timescale Nuclear Waste Services is responsible for implementing geological disposal of the UK’s most hazardous radioactive waste and is currently working towards identifying potential sites for a geological disposal facility (GDF).

Non-intrusive investigations and site evaluations have found that Search Areas under consideration have the potential to host a GDF. Further site investigations, including intrusive (deep borehole) investigations, are now needed to underpin GDF feasibility and environmental safety arguments.

These assessments will then support decision-making on the preferred locations for the surface and sub-surface elements of a GDF associated with each Search Area. The Environment Agency has set out a process of ‘staged regulation’ of the GDF implementation process [3].

Staged regulation begins with an application for an environmental permit to undertake surface-based intrusive investigations to obtain information about sub-surface conditions. Preparation of an Initial Site Evaluation (ISE) to support such an environmental permit application is consistent with the environmental regulators’ guidance on implementing geological disposal (the GRA) [3] and preliminary guidance on the scope and content of an ISE (the 2014 ISE Guidance) [7].

The development of an ISE for a GDF has no precedent and EA has never determined a Schedule 23 application for intrusive investigation works. Consequently, there is a degree of uncertainty surrounding the approaches and expectations from both an applicant and regulatory perspective. This PIN should be read in conjunction with the following documents, all of which can be viewed on Atamis: https://atamis-2464.my.site.com/s/Welcome