Expert advising Gibraltar government not independent

The Gibraltar government has appointed three people as advisers over the issue of repairing the nuclear submarine HMS Tireless. They are John Large, Peter Davidson of NNC and an employee of Ove Arup. Scottish CND are concerned that Mr Davidson is not independent as NNC is heavily involved with the MoD. They have also played a key role in concealing the risks of a nuclear accident at the submarine shiplift in Faslane.

Recent reports in Gibraltar suggest that only one of the three experts will be given full details of the Tireless proposal, because only one of them has security clearance. We strongly suspect that this will be Mr Davidson of NNC.

When NNC was originally set up it was 35 per cent owned by the British Government, although this is no longer the case. Throughout its life the company has had substantial contracts with the government for both civil and military nuclear work. The GEC website says of NNC that "It provides essential safety case and quality consultancy services for the new Vanguard Class submarine facilities at Faslane, Coulport and Rosyth."

NNC also play a key role in the nuclear weapons production facility at Aldermaston in Berkshire. The NNC website lists the following as current or recent contracts at Aldermaston: Major facilities project management, Design and build of liquid effluent treatment plant, Design and manufacture of specialist effluent plant, Manufacture of tritium handling glove boxes, Design and build of Tritium Handling Facility. They also have a contract with the MoD for the development of new technology for tritium production for the British nuclear weapons programme.

Most worrying for the people of Gibraltar is the role NNC have played in the Shiplift at the Faslane submarine base near Glasgow. The shiplift was built in the 1980s and is the only facility in the world where a nuclear armed and nuclear powered submarine can be lifted out of the water. This operation carries with it inherent dangers. The construction of the shiplift was dogged by a series of problems from the start.

(Nuclear powered HMS Sceptre entering the Faslane shiplift)

The main issue was that the structure was designed to low safety standards which had been superceded by the time building work started. As a nuclear installation the shiplift has to withstand an earthquake. It was designed on the basis of surviving a horizontal acceleration of 0.2 g in an earthquake. Later it was realised that there had to be no unacceptable consequences if the horizontal acceleration was 40 % greater than this.

NNC were employed by the MoD to do the impossible, and prove that the shiplift was safe under these new criteria. A leaked letter revealed the extent of their dilemma. Royal Navy Commander Crawford wrote on 27 March 1990 that "the safety authorities expressed concern at the ability to meet this 40 per cent margin."

Proving that the shiplift was safe would have been hard enough if it had been built properly, but it wasn't. To resist pressure on the shiplift from the side, 188 diagonal raker piles were placed at an angle in the sea bed. When some of the piles were tested, 66 % were found to be defective. Those which were inspected were replaced. A further 82 piles were inaccessible and so could not be tested or replaced. It is likely that the concrete in most of these 82 piles did not set properly. The piles will have lost their tension capability and if the steel degrades this will also reduce their compression capability.

The concerns about earthquakes are not academic. On 17th September 1985 there was a tremor which measured 2.5 of the Richter scale centred 12 kms from Faslane.

NNC were employed by the MoD to carry out the seismic analysis of the shiplift and this is currently listed on their website. After years of number crunching the NNC and MoD were unable to give the shiplift full through-life safety clearance. But what they did was they said that nuclear submarines would be allowed to use the shiplift on a case by case basis. The facility has been used several times in recent years, particularly to keep the nuclear powered and armed Trident submarines in service.

This is a worrying parallel with the situation in Gibraltar. On the face of it the Navy should not be giving clearance for the reactor repair in Gibraltar. However, in the case of the Faslane Shiplift, NNC were prepared to massage the figures so that the Navy could be given the go ahead, in exceptional circumstances.