Dr Paul Dorfman is not right to claim that "the HSE review is looking increasingly narrow, with fact-finding and weighing of evidence limited to the usual suspects, excluding involvement from energy experts who are not nuclear proponents" (Who to trust on nuclear?, 14 April).
Her Majesty's chief inspector of nuclear installations, Dr Mike Weightman, made clear in his statement of 29 March that his report would be wide and comprehensive in scope, and that it would be produced in an open and transparent way. On 4 April, Dr Weightman published a letter inviting a wide range of stakeholders to submit to him any technical evidence or facts relating to the events at the Fukushima plant and their potential lessons for enhancing nuclear safety in the UK. The letter was sent to over 8,000 recipients and published on our website. Nominations have also been sought from academia, NGOs, the nuclear industry, environmental regulators and others for relevant experts to support Dr Weightman with independent technical opinion on his emerging findings. This is not a partial engagement but a wide-ranging one.
Les Philpott
Office for Nuclear Regulation