§ Mr. Hendersonasked the Secretary of State for Employment when the steering committee on radio frequency ignition hazards at St. Fergus, Aberdeenshire, appointed by the Health and Safety Executive, will report on its work.
§ Mr. John GrantThe steering committee completed its work on 28 February 1979. The report of the committee was published today and copies of it will be placed in the Library of the House today.
The report describes research and an extensive series of tests carried out at three gas processing plants at St. Fergus to discover whether dangerous sparks could be caused at the plants by high frequency radio signals from a nearby naval wireless transmitter station.
The steering committe report concludes that there would be an ample margin of safety at the existing Total and British Gas Corporation gas plants at St. Fergus, with the radio station at Crimond operating at full capacity. The position is similar at the Shell plant at its present stage of construction, but the report recommends 313W that further site tests should be made on the Shell plant as structures are completed; if necessary, safeguards will be introduced by Shell.
The steering committee was chaired by an officer of the Health and Safety Executive and included two independent experts as well as representatives from the Ministry of Defence and operators of the three processing plants.