Cold War Veterans Blog

First nuclear sub patrol left from base set up at height of Cold War

WILLIAM TINNING July 31 2008

It was established four decades ago at the height of the Cold War when relations between the West and the former Soviet Union were on a knife-edge.

The Royal Navy took over a remote 1000-acre site on the shores of Loch Long in Argyll, amid some of Scotland's most beautiful countryside, for use as a base where Britain's nuclear submarines would be armed.

The Royal Naval Armaments Depot at Coulport, on the Rosneath peninsula, opened in 1966. Two years later Britain's first Polaris nuclear submarine patrol left from the base sparking a surge of protests that continue today.
advertisement

RNAD Coulport is lesser known than its sister base HM Naval Base Clyde at Faslane, a short drive past the resort of Helensburgh, where Britain's most important submarine base has been located since the early 1950s.

The comparisons in terms of the numbers employed at each base contrast starkly.

Some 6500 military and civilian staff work at Faslane for the Royal Navy and defence company Babcock Naval Services making it the biggest single site employer in Scotland.

Only 540 military and civilian staff are employed at Coulport.

The most up-to-date independent review by Scottish Enterprise, which covered the financial year of 2001-20002, showed that 3000 people were indirectly employed because of the bases at Faslane and Coulport.

At the time the review said that the bases were spending £267m in Scotland in salaries and contracts and one in four people living in West Dunbartonshire was directly employed at the bases.

The explosives handling jetty at Coulport, where the Trident warheads are loaded and unloaded from the current class of Vanguard submarines, is described as the most dangerous job in the nuclear industry. It is the only facility in Britain used for this purpose.

While a lot of the protests over the years have been concentrated at Faslane many have also focused on Coulport where nuclear warheads are transported by road several times a year from the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, near Reading, an hour's train ride west of London in rural Berkshire.

Moving the 540 jobs at Coulport from Ministry of Defence control would effectively bring the whole of the Trident servicing programme into the private sector. Babcock Marine already run the Faslane facility and Lockheed Martin effectively run the Aldermaston facility.

Moving the work at Coulport into the private sector will increase the pressure on the MoD to open up its Scottish sites to licensing and inspection by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII).

Until now the MoD has maintained that Rosyth, Faslane and the Vulcan naval test reactor at Dounreay in Caithness are military facilities which are beyond the authority of the NII or liable to inspection by the Health and Safety Executive.

Submarines are serviced, maintained and repaired at Faslane and are stocked up before deployment.

The base is also used for training and accommodation for crews.

A £150m development is currently under way at the base to build Scotland's "biggest hotel" with almost 2000 en-suite cabins.

The MoD's intention, within the next 15 years, is that Faslane will be the only base in the UK from where submarines operate.

The Trident weapons system is expected to be in use until the mid-part of this century. However, the submarines that carry them will not last that long and will have to be replaced from about 2020-2025.

A plan to replace Trident over the next 20 years was agreed by former prime minister Tony Blair, and backed by MPs at Westminster last year, despite a major Labour revolt. The plan has been pursued by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Last month about 500 demonstrators formed a 2000-metre long human chain alongside the fence of the Faslane base.

The event was timed to mark the 40th anniversary of the first Polaris nuclear submarine patrol from Faslane and the 26th birthday of the Faslane peace camp.

It marked one year since a vote in the Scottish Parliament against the replacement of Trident.

Last September new figures showed the cost of policing a year-long anti-nuclear protest was £5m.