ANTI-nuclear sub campaigners claim they have been barred from presenting a damning report to a public meeting about Southampton’s nuclear disaster plan.

The Solent Coalition Against Nuclear Ships (SCANS) wanted to highlight concerns about the safety arrangements for nuclear powered submarines visiting the docks.

It comes after councillors unanimously last week agreed to adopt one of the Navy’s next generation of monster nuclear killer submarines, HMS Artful, after the affiliation with HMS Southampton ended with its decommissioning.

The campaign group said its report reveals a “shocking catalogue of contradictions, missing information, and under-assessment of the impacts” of a radiation leak.

But Southampton City Council and the Royal Navy refused to add it to the agenda for this morning’s meeting which will discuss the city’s Sotonsafe emergency plan that earlier this year reduced from 2km to 1.5km a safety zone in which anti-radiation pills would be handed out.

The report, by independent consulting engineer John Large, reviews official and previously classified documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.

It claims:

  • The Navy ignored the risk of sabotage, terrorist attack, fire or explosion on board a visiting sub.
  • That the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) safety regulators called Southampton’s submarine berth safety statement “inadequate, outsourced and trivial”.
  • Emergency crews have not been trained to deal with radiation exposure and would have to be withdrawn in an emergency.

Mr Large said: “These Freedom of Information requests have peeled back the veneer of false confidence underpinning the MoD’s safety case.”

SCANS chairman David Hoadley said: “This analysis clearly shows that the safety arrangements for nuclear submarines visiting Southampton docks are not fit for purpose, and it is scandalous that the City Council and the Navy are trying to stifle debate over the very serious matters it raises.”

A council spokesman said: “Mr Large is welcome to attend the meeting and ask questions, but we can’t at this stage accept requests for deputations or presentations which fall outside the agenda.

“The report will be discussed by the SotonSafe Emergency Planning Group in due course, once partner agency colleagues have had the opportunity to assimilate and comment upon it.”