from Daily Record, 16 May 2013
The Royal Navy’s fleet of nuclear submarines has been banned from using berths in two of Scotland’s lochs because of official doubts over whether the public and sailors would be safe in the event of an accident.
We can reveal that three exercises to test emergency responses to simulated submarine accidents in March and April failed assessments by government safety regulators because of a series of “inadequate” preparations.
As a result the Ministry of Defence’s internal watchdog, the Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator (DNSR), has prohibited nuclear submarines from berthing in Loch Goil, near the Faslane naval base on the Clyde, and in Loch Ewe, off Poolewe in Wester Ross.
DNSR has also ordered an emergency exercise at the nuclear weapons depot at Coulport on Loch Long to be rerun as part of a “get well plan” for the site. Exercise Sheetband on 21 March is said to have “failed in a broad range of areas” and now must be “redemonstrated”.
The Royal Navy currently has 11 nuclear submarines, including four Vanguard-class boats carrying Trident nuclear missiles and two new Astute-class nuclear-powered submarines operating out of Faslane. They have designated berths in eight locations around the UK, concentrated at Faslane and naval bases in the south of England.
One vital berth is in Loch Goil, where the noise range of submarines is tested to ensure they can navigate the world’s oceans without being heard. But access to that has now been barred until the Royal Navy improves its emergency plans, following the failure of Exercise Strathport on 17 April.
According to the UK government’s Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), which works with DNSR in overseeing military nuclear safety, the exercise will now have to be rerun. “Exercise Strathport was deemed an inadequate demonstration as their plan was considered inadequate,” said an ONR spokesman.
“This needs to be revised and reissued, after which DNSR and ONR will re-inspect as a basis for providing consent to use the berth at Loch Goil on a case-by-case basis.” In six months or so, if the exercise has been successfully rerun, they will consider whether to give the Navy the automatic right to use the loch again.
Emergency exercises at Loch Ewe have been plagued with problems for years, prompting DNSR to secretly ban submarines from the loch in 2008. Another exercise late last year failed “due to an inadequate plan, communications and facilities,” said the ONR spokesman.
A rerun called Exercise Highport on 13 March was better, but aspects of the Navy’s plan still needed updating, he added. “DNSR have withheld consent to use the berth until this work has been completed.”
The specific problems encountered during the latest exercises have not been explained. But in past exercises, there have been communication breakdowns, radiation exposure risks and failures to properly account for numbers of casualties.
Some insiders attribute the problems to the creeping privatisation of Faslane and Coulport, with a growing number of operations contracted out to private companies and overseen by the Ministry of Defence (MoD). “It's a hotbed of nepotism just now,” said one.
John Ainslie, co-ordinator of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, argued that there were “fundamental problems” with the MoD’s approach to nuclear safety. “We cannot sleep easily in our beds so long as these floating Chernobyls remain in our lochs,” he said.
“The MoD has been given a red card by its own internal regulator. It is clearly not ready to respond to a nuclear accident at Coulport, Loch Goil or Loch Ewe.”
The SNP’s defence spokesman, Angus Robertson MP, promised to quiz the MoD in parliament about the failed exercises. “The MoD must be totally transparent about any nuclear safety issue,” he said.
“Any suggestion that there are inadequate safety plans in place will be deeply disturbing to the local communities by these lochs and to Scotland as a whole.”
The MoD declined to say what impacts the loch bans might have on its submarine operations. “The MoD takes its nuclear safety responsibilities seriously and conducts regular training to maintain high standards,” an MoD spokesman said.
“We are taking steps to address the issues raised by regulators following recent exercises but there is no risk of harm to the public or to the environment. The Royal Navy continues to operate submarines safely out of HM Naval Base Clyde.”
This story was followed up by the BBC.
A parliamentary answer on 20 May 2013 revealed that nuclear submarines have berthed in Loch Goil 23 times since 2008. The loch was used twice in 2013 before the ban, reported above, came into force.
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