Contacts: Nigel Day, Oxford CND - 248357
Irene Gill, Oxford CND - 242919
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The attached photo shows a Trident nuclear weapon warhead carrier travelling North on the A34 at Botley, at 1.15pm on Wednesday 9th November 2005.

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A convoy of nuclear weapons passed between Botley and Oxford on the A34 at I.15 on Wednesday 9th November. Some of the convoy vehicles were photographed as they travelled North past the ‘Botley Interchange’ road sign by Irene Gill, a member of Oxford CND, the local Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament group.

This follows a 23:1 vote of the full Oxford City Council on 3rd October in favour of writing a letter to the Ministry of Defence protesting that a nuclear convoy passed close to Oxford (on exactly the same route) on the morning of 20th July.
Another letter was sent to John Kelly, County Emergency Planning Officer, saying the City Council believes he should be informed when these convoys pass through or near Oxford. Lastly, another letter was sent to the two local MPs asking them what can be done nationally to respect Oxford’s status as a Nuclear Free Authority.

Andrew Smith MP has acknowledged the letter, but replies are still awaited from the others.

Convoys of nuclear weapons travel to, and return about six times a year between the Atomic weapons Establishment at Burghfield, Berkshire and the Royal Naval Armaments Depot at Coulport, where the warheads are prepared for the submarine launched Trident missile system.

The warheads in the carriers contain plutonium and other deadly radioactive materials. The safety of the convoys has been assessed by the MOD’s directorate of nuclear movements and nuclear accident response group.(Sunday Herald 17th July) In a report dated December 16th 2004, it said there is a risk of an “inadvertent yield “ from a nuclear explosion in certain circumstances in an accident.

The MOD regularly runs exercises to evaluate how the armed forces, emergency services and local authorities would respond to accidents en route. In response to a request from New Scientist magazine (12th November 2005) under the Freedom of Information Act the MOD released post–mortems of four exercises conducted during the past decade. They reveal that delays in issuing public warnings, poor monitoring of radiation and breakdown in communications could all have increased the public’s exposure to radiation.


Nigel Day
24.11.05