Magnox North

Magnox North Sites

Trawsfynydd

CYM

ENG

Site address

Trawsfynydd Site
Blaenau Ffestiniog
Gwynedd
LL41 4DT

Tel: 44 (0) 1766 543210
Fax: 44 (0) 1766 543343

Site profile

Trawsfynydd decommissioning site, located on a 15.4 hectare site, on the northern bank of an inland lake in the heart of Snowdonia National Park, North Wales, is a twin reactor station now defuelled and being decommissioned. When operational the station produced enough electricity to meet the needs of a city the size of Manchester in the UK. The decommissioning programme on site started in 1993 when defuelling commenced and is progressing well.

Trawsfynydd comprised twin Magnox reactors, a cooling pond building and a multitude of ancillary buildings. Following 26 years of successful generation Trawsfynydd was taken off-line in 1991 for repairs which were deemed to be uneconomic. Defuelling of the reactors commenced in 1993 and was completed 21 months later during 1995, four months ahead of schedule and under budget. This operation saw 99.99% of radioactive material removed from site. Trawsfynydd has been undergoing decommissioning since 1995. 

Currently working towards the Care and Maintenance Phase in the Life Time Plan, Trawsfynydd is the only UK Magnox Site to be recovering waste from all its waste streams, and the only UK Site to be recovering certain types of waste. All recovery operations centre around Low-Level and Intermediate-Level legacy wastes, the by-products of the operational phase of the station and are categorised as follows:- Fuel Element Debris (FED), Miscellaneous Activated Components (MAC), Resins, Sludges, Active Waste, Scabbled Ponds materials – there are no high-level wastes at the Site. To house the processed and packaged wastes, an Intermediate Level Waste Store (ILW) has been constructed which was completed in 2008 and commissioned in 2009.

Magnox North is the management and operations contractor responsible for the day-to-day operation of the site under contract to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

At a glance

Location: Gwynedd
Nearby towns/cities: Blaenau Ffestiniog (7 miles), Porthmadog (10 miles), Bangor (38 miles).
Site area: 15 hectares
Approximate number of current employees: 218 staff, approx 65 agency workers and approximately 350 contractors