The picture with this blog comes from Nukewatch. it shows part of a convoy that can carry nuclear weapons in a suburban street somewhere in either Nottingham or Derby. Look carefully and you can see a massive vehicle trying to turn around. The convoy has taken a wrong turning into a housing estate.
At our most recent monthly meeting we watched a film called Deadly Cargo (below) which showed how these convoys travel between Aldermaston in Berkshire and Coalport in Scotland where they are stored ready for putting into our nuclear submarines based in Faslane. They are escorted by the police and the army and travel in green trucks. Like your car, an atomic bomb requires regular servicing and they have to be taken to the warhead factory at Aldermaston for that and then back to Coalport. Added to that is the fact that in Derby there is the Rolls Royce Marine Power Division where they make the nuclear powered engines for our submarines and civil nuclear materials from nuclear power stations is carried in convoys with blue trucks and you can see that at any time there is the possibility of nuclear material being transported on our roads here in the East Midlands.
Nukewatch monitor and track the movements of these convoys. They are a network of volunteers who believe that the British public has a right to know that nuclear convoys travel on UK roads and the dangers this poses. They are also weapons of mass destruction and sending a submarine to sea containing a live atomic bomb is actually against international law.
I had been told in the past that these nuclear convoys occasionally stop off overnight at Chetwynd Barracks in Chilwell a while ago and a ranger at Sherwood Forest visitors centre told me he had actually seen the convoy. Nukewatch have told me that the last recorded sighting in Chilwell was in 2008 but that doesn't mean there haven't been stops there since then. They just haven't been sighted.
If you think this is outrageous and would like to do something about it you can offer to be a spotter. Being a spotter can be boring as you will have to wait in your car for up to 3 hours and still not see a convoy and you may be called at unsociable hours as convoys often travel at night. Let me know if you want to get involved and I will contact Nukewatch and we will arrange a training day in the region where you can find out more and learn what is needed from you.
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