Office for Nuclear Regulation, Environment Agency & Natural Resources Wales

Regulators' approach to public and stakeholder engagement for the Generic Design Assessment (GDA) of the Rolls-Royce SMR Limited 470 MW Small Modular Reactor (SMR) design

About this engagement plan

This plan sets out the regulators' proposed approach to engagement with the public and stakeholders during the Generic Design Assessment (GDA) of the Rolls-Royce SMR design.

GDA is a joint process undertaken by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and the Environment Agency. Natural Resources Wales (NRW) participates in GDA where a new nuclear power station design is likely to be proposed for construction in Wales.

We welcome your feedback and views on our proposed approach to engagement during GDA.  

Who might be interested in our engagement?

You might engage with the GDA process if you:

Our approach to engagement

We will be conducting this design assessment in an open and transparent way, as we did throughout previous GDAs. We will be sharing information and proposals with stakeholders to build their understanding and knowledge of the assessment, our decision-making process and the roles and responsibilities of the regulators.

We will be encouraging and enabling stakeholder input. It's important to us that we involve people in decisions that affect their community. We want to understand everybody's comments and views about the RR SMR design. Where relevant, we can use these comments to help inform our assessments of the reactor design.

While it will always remain the responsibility of the regulators to make decisions throughout a GDA about the adequacy of a reactor design against regulatory requirements, we consider that our decisions will be better informed with meaningful engagement.

We hope this approach will build trust and confidence in us as regulators and enhance stakeholder relationships both locally and nationally.

Our objectives

We want stakeholders to:

Our stakeholders

Our stakeholders include:

How we will engage and share information with stakeholders

Our communications and engagement activity will include:

Getting involved

7.1 Comment on a nuclear power station design

The comments process is a requirement of the GDA process. Its main features are the:

Rolls-Royce SMR Ltd has published a website as part of this process.

Respond to the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales public consultation

As part of the assessment process, the environment agencies will prepare a consultation document setting out their preliminary conclusions about the design. We will publish and consult on these findings once we have completed Step 3. This is planned for late summer 2025.

Although ONR does not carry out a public consultation, as it has its own well-established avenues of engagement, views submitted via the comments process can also help to inform ONR's, the Environment Agency's and NRW's assessments.

Engagement

There will also be further opportunities for engagement with us through involvement in various stakeholder groups including Site Stakeholder Groups (SSGs), Local Liaison Committees (LLC), conferences and NGO forums.

Reporting progress and responding to stakeholders

We will:

Feedback on our approach

We welcome feedback on this engagement strategy. Please send your comments to our communications team in each organisation. Email:

Further information