Sellafield attack on striking workers at massively hazardous nuclear site causes serious injuries

Striking workers in northwest England faced a “shocking and horrifying” event this week when a vehicle ploughed into them in an “unprovoked attack”.

Strike action at Sellafield

The nuclear waste management site in Sellafield, Cumbria, is Britain’s “largest and most strategically significant nuclear site“. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has described Sellafield’s Magnox Swarf Storage Silo (MSSS) as “the most hazardous building in the UK”. Others have called Sellafield “Europe’s most hazardous industrial site“, or even one of the world’s most dangerous.

Unite construction workers at Sellafield were on strike this week because employers have refused to give these highly skilled employees premiums that workers at other nuclear facilities receive. The union condemned the attack on the “lawful and peaceful picket”. But general secretary Sharon Graham insisted:

This incident will not deter our members in continuing with their lawful industrial action and the strikes will go ahead as planned.

Earlier in the year, cleaning and security contract workers at Sellafield also voted to strike against their private-sector employers. Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), meanwhile, has expressed concerns this year about the “sub-optimal culture” at the site, with “16 non-disclosure agreements signed by Sellafield Ltd in the last 16 years”, and a “prevalence and perception of bullying”. Sellafield and its regulator have previously spent almost £1m “fighting a whistleblower who raised concerns about workplace culture at the vast nuclear site”.

Serious injuries and “tensions in the community”

The driving attack this week seriously injured a 55-year-old, who “suffered rib and collarbone fractures and a head injury”. He’s “now in a stable condition in hospital”. The other person, a 39-year-old, had less serious injuries.

The BBC reported that two men in their early 50s denied driving offences in court. Police explained how:

a Polaris Ranger off-road vehicle struck two people taking part in industrial action at the Calder Gate entrance to Sellafield in Cumbria on Tuesday, with another vehicle also involved.

They charged one suspect with “serious injury by dangerous driving” and another with “dangerous driving”. They also arrested and then bailed two teenagers “while investigations continue”. And they added that:

Officers are aware of some tensions in the community and would ask everybody to act responsibly.

There will be “a plea and trial preparation hearing on 20 October“.

“Intolerable risks” and mismanagement continue as government plans to further increase nuclear production

PAC has previously slammed the slow progress of decommissioning work at Sellafield, outlining “cost overruns and continuing safety concerns” and emphasising “intolerable risks”. Costs have been spiralling, and the crisis could potentially worsen with a significant increase in nuclear waste in coming years. This is because Keir Starmer’s government has just signed a “multibillion-pound deal” with US president Donald Trump to ramp up private-sector nuclear production with “up to 12 modern nuclear reactors in northeast England” to power resource-hungry big-tech data centres.

Serious questions about mismanagement at Sellafield remain, however. PAC chairman Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, for example, has highlighted the massive challenges the site faces, saying in June 2025 that:

Every day at Sellafield is a race against time to complete works before buildings reach the end of their life. Our report contains too many signs that this is a race that Sellafield risks losing.

Sellafield Limited runs the site, having passed between public and private hands on a few occasions. It has “missed most of its annual targets for retrieving waste from buildings”, and PAC has lamented that:

The consequence of this underperformance is that the buildings are likely to remain extremely hazardous for longer.

The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), meanwhile, also fined Sellafield Limited £332,500 in 2024 “for cyber security shortfalls” from 2019 to 2023.

Clifton-Brown has asserted that:

Government must do far more to hold all involved immediately accountable… to better safeguard both the public purse and the public itself.

Featured image via the Canary