IN Brief:
- Two improvement notices followed a formwork panel falling approximately 29 metres and seriously injuring a worker at Hinkley Point C.
- ONR identified deficiencies in the planning, management, and monitoring of construction work by the BYLOR joint venture.
- The compliance deadline has been extended to 14 September 2026 while corrective measures are completed and demonstrated to the regulator.
Office for Nuclear Regulation has extended two improvement notices served after a formwork panel fell approximately 29 metres and seriously injured a worker at Hinkley Point C.
The notices apply to Bouygues Travaux Publics SAS and Laing O’Rourke Delivery Limited, which operate together through the BYLOR joint venture on the Somerset nuclear construction programme. ONR originally issued the enforcement action in June following enquiries into the incident.
The regulator found that BYLOR, acting as a contractor, had failed to ensure that construction work was planned, managed, and monitored so far as reasonably practicable without risks to health and safety. The notices were issued under Regulation 15(2) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015.
The compliance deadline has now been moved to 14 September 2026. ONR said progress had been made but that the companies required additional time to demonstrate full compliance, leaving the enforcement action open while corrective measures are completed.
The incident did not create a nuclear safety, public, or environmental risk. The notices concern conventional construction safety on a project whose scale, temporary works, lifting requirements, and sequence of civil engineering activity make those controls particularly demanding.
Hinkley Point C involves two European Pressurised Reactor units and a vast programme of reinforced concrete, heavy temporary works, large lifting operations, and overlapping construction activities. Formwork and falsework are fundamental to that sequence because the permanent structures cannot be created without temporary systems capable of carrying wet concrete, construction loads, and working access.
A panel falling 29 metres carries an obvious risk regardless of the wider project. The circumstances become more complex when formwork has to be installed, altered, struck, or moved around changing structures while other trades and lifting operations continue nearby.
Safe execution depends on more than the design capacity of the formwork itself. The work sequence, temporary restraints, lifting points, access arrangements, exclusion zones, weather conditions, supervision, and the condition of the permanent structure all affect whether a panel can be handled safely.
The CDM Regulations place direct duties on contractors to plan, manage, and monitor the work under their control. On large programmes, those duties are usually expressed through temporary works procedures, method statements, permits, lifting plans, competence controls, inspection regimes, and detailed supervision.
The existence of those systems is not sufficient if the controls fail at the workface. Complex projects often have extensive safety documentation precisely because the physical conditions change rapidly, and the practical test is whether the agreed method remains valid when the activity actually takes place.
ONR’s decision to extend the deadline indicates that the response is still being tested rather than simply recorded as complete. The regulator will need evidence that the deficiencies identified through its enquiries have been corrected and that the revised controls are capable of being maintained as the project progresses.
That distinction matters on a programme with multiple contractors and changing work fronts. A corrective action that works around one incident location has limited value if the same weakness can reappear when formwork moves to another structure or when a new team repeats the activity.
Temporary works management is especially vulnerable to programme pressure because many systems exist only long enough to enable the permanent structure to be built. Their short physical life does not make them minor engineering assets; failure can occur before a defect in permanent construction would even become visible.
Hinkley’s scale magnifies those interfaces. Heavy civil engineering, reinforced concrete, cranes, working at height, temporary access, and stored energy are routine hazards across construction, but the number of simultaneous operations and the density of the delivery programme make disciplined coordination essential.
The improvement notices are intended to secure compliance rather than conclude the investigation with a penalty. Extending them gives BYLOR more time, but it also leaves a clear regulatory test ahead: the contractors must show that the controls introduced after the incident address the shortcomings identified by ONR.
The next formal point is 14 September. Until then, the notices remain an active measure against a project where temporary works are as central to safe delivery as the permanent concrete they enable.