We have such sites to show you

One of the great things – possibly the best thing – about working in communications is that we get to go where few others ever do. As a humble newspaper reporter I drove supercars, went behind the scenes on film sets and had the grand tour of endless numbers of ancient buildings, crime scenes and celebrity homes. Later my police ID gave me open access to pretty much every part of the constabulary I worked for, from the firing range to the forensics lab.

And now I work for Sellafield Ltd, which necessity has seen become one of the most inaccessible places in the country.

Of course, it wasn’t always this way, we used to have a visitor's centre and bus tours, open every day except Christmas Day. But these days the average punter isn’t getting anywhere near the site on any day of the year, let alone 364 of ‘em.

So it feels like a real privilege to be able to spend the day there on a site visit, as I and my colleagues in the internal comms team did on Tuesday.

We were there with purpose – to re-acquaint ourselves with the place after a long time away, and to gain some insight into how we can deliver our messaging to a workforce scattered across a group of operational buildings with varying degrees of communications infrastructure.

As always, it was fascinating. We visited the Fuel Handling Plant and Magnox Reprocessing, two facilities tasked with taking on and dealing with used nuclear fuel. We were lucky enough to see decommissioning in action as a seven-tonne piece of concrete was craned off the remaining Windscale pile chimney. We talked to people whose pride in what they do shines through. We went through the complex processes needed to gain access to, and exit from, some of our most sensitive areas.

Like every time I visit the site, the scale of what my organisation is doing blew my mind. The place is HUGE, and the amount of change since the last time I was there (pre Covid) is extraordinary. Buildings have vanished, and been replaced by new ones. Cranes are everywhere, it’s like Manchester city centre.

The visit was invaluable, and well worth the seven hours I ended up spending in the car to do it. I came back invigorated and ready to communicate. I feel I have an inkling of how we might achieve our communication challenges. I still don’t know enough about how the site works, but I know a little bit more… and the next time some mentions Magnox Repro, I’ll be clear in my head exactly what we’re talking about. Just like previous visits have clarified my understanding of impenetrable ideas like the First Generation Magnox Storage Pond, the Sludge Handling Plant, the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo and the Silos Maintenance Facility.

What we do is amazing, it’s such a shame you can’t see it. But we’ll do our best to tell you all about it.