An internal Ministry of Defence report detailing more than 260 nuclear safety incidents at the Clyde naval bases in less than five years has been described as "shocking" and "chilling", the Sunday Herald can reveal.
Three-quarters of the incidents are blamed on human error, and are likely to include fires, leaks and procedural blunders. There have been "issues" with a system meant to protect an explosives store from lightning strikes, as well as problems caused by staff and resource shortages.
The MoD has also revealed it is planning a new conventional explosives handling facility at Coulport to deal with the extra nuclear submarines due to be based there over the next few years in the event of a No vote in the independence referendum.
The Scottish National Party's defence spokesman, Angus Robertson MP, called the revelations on safety "chilling", "shocking" and "simply unacceptable". However, the MoD said it was "entirely misleading" to focus on the number of reported incidents.
An MoD report on its annual review of safety at the Faslane nuclear submarine base and the Coulport nuclear bomb store in Argyll has been released under Freedom of Information law. Dated September 2012, it discloses how many "nuclear safety events" have occurred in recent years.
Between April 2008 and August 2012 there were 262 such events, most of which were attributed to "human factors". More than 50 incidents have been logged every year. The report does not describe any of the events, but MoD safety reports released for earlier years show that they can include radioactive contamination, small fires and failing to follow safety rules.
The figures do not include incidents involving nuclear weapons, for which no numbers are given. The report does say, however, that there have been "false alarms and system failures" with an "environmental hazard detection system" for the warheads.
The report also says "issues relating to the lightning protection system for the Faslane explosives store house have not yet been fully resolved". It makes a several references to other problems caused by shortages of staff and resources.
"Yet again safety at Faslane is an issue," said Robertson. "To have more than 50 nuclear safety events every year is simply unacceptable."
He described the MoD report as "shocking", and said that it was "chilling" to hear staff shortages and system failures mentioned in connection with nuclear weapons. "Nuclear safety has to be paramount at Faslane - and it is clearly not. That should be a matter of deep concern for everyone."
The Westminster Government's claim that Scotland's defence was safe in its hands was no longer credible, Robertson argued. "Trident is a hugely expensive weapon of mass destruction dumped on the Clyde, yet our regiments are cut to the bone and there are no ocean-going surface vessels based in Scotland."
John Ainslie, co-ordinator of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said there had been far too many safety incidents at Faslane and Coulport. "It is very worrying that the MoD is taking on additional nuclear work while they are short of key personnel," he said.
The MoD report revealed that the explosives handling jetty at Coulport will become overloaded as a new fleet of seven Astute-class submarines arrive on the Clyde. It said an "alternative ammunitioning capability" will be needed to take conventional torpedoes on and off the submarines. The MoD confirmed to the Sunday Herald that a new facility would be required. A spokesman said: "A currently unused jetty within RNAD Coulport, the MoD's existing dedicated weapons handling facility, will be reinstated to handle the ammunition."
The MoD spokesman added: "It is entirely misleading to focus only on the number of reports. Our comprehensive reporting system purposely captures even the most minor of incidents, which never pose a threat to the public or our personnel, to ensure all lessons are learned."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article