diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 262f8162f..672bdd706 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -19,6 +19,8 @@ statsd==3.2.1
 jsonschema==2.5.1
 Flask-Redis==0.1.0
 gunicorn==19.6.0
+docopt==0.6.2
+
 
 # pin to minor version 3.1.x
 notifications-python-client>=3.1,<3.2
diff --git a/scripts/run_celery.sh b/scripts/run_celery.sh
index 8b2a1dec2..8830d2491 100755
--- a/scripts/run_celery.sh
+++ b/scripts/run_celery.sh
@@ -3,4 +3,4 @@
 set -e
 
 source environment.sh
-celery -A run_celery.notify_celery worker --loglevel=INFO --concurrency=4
+celery -A run_celery.notify_celery worker --pidfile="/tmp/celery.pid" --loglevel=INFO --concurrency=4
diff --git a/scripts/stop_celery.py b/scripts/stop_celery.py
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..71b10ec03
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/stop_celery.py
@@ -0,0 +1,82 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python3
+"""
+
+Scipt used to stop celery in AWS environments.
+This is used from upstart to issue a TERM signal to the master celery process.
+
+This will then allow the worker threads to stop, after completing
+whatever tasks that are in flight.
+
+Note the script blocks for up to 15minutes, which is long enough to allow our
+longest possible task to complete. If it can return quicker it will.
+
+Usage:
+    ./stop_celery.py <celery_pid_file>
+
+Example:
+    ./stop_celery.py /tmp/celery.pid
+"""
+
+import os
+from docopt import docopt
+import re
+import subprocess
+from time import sleep
+
+
+def strip_white_space(from_this):
+    return re.sub(r'\s+', '', from_this)
+
+
+def get_pid_from_file(filename):
+    """
+    Open the file which MUST contain only the PID of the master celery process.
+    This is written to disk by the start celery command issued by upstart
+    """
+    with open(filename) as f:
+        celery_pid = f.read()
+    return strip_white_space(celery_pid)
+
+
+def issue_term_signal_to_pid(pid, celery_pid_file):
+    """
+    Issues a TERM signal (15) to the master celery process.
+
+    This method attempts to print out any response from this subprocess call. However this call is generally silent.
+    """
+    print("Trying to stop ", celery_pid_file)
+    result = subprocess.Popen(['kill', '-15', pid], stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
+    for line in result.stdout.readlines():
+        print(line.rstrip())
+    for line in result.stderr.readlines():
+        print(line.rstrip())
+
+
+def pid_still_running(pid):
+    """
+    uses the proc filesystem to identify if the celery master pid is still around.
+
+    Once the process stops this file no longer exists. Slim possibilty of a race condition here.
+    """
+    return os.path.exists("/proc/" + pid)
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    arguments = docopt(__doc__)
+    celery_pid_file = arguments['<celery_pid_file>']
+
+    celery_pid = get_pid_from_file(celery_pid_file)
+
+    issue_term_signal_to_pid(celery_pid, celery_pid_file)
+
+    """
+    Blocking loop to check for the still running process.
+    5 seconds between loops
+    180 loops
+    Maximum block time of 900 seconds (15 minutes)
+    """
+    iteration = 0
+    while pid_still_running(celery_pid) and iteration < 180:
+        print("[", celery_pid_file, "] waited for ", iteration * 5, " secs")
+        sleep(5)
+        iteration += 1