Since the 1950s the Atomic Weapons Establishment, more commonly known as AWE Aldermaston, has been the heart of British nuclear weapons programmes to design, build, maintain and eventually decommission British nuclear warheads. This nuclear weapons factory is located at Aldermaston in West Berkshire, about 50 miles west of London. AWE Burghfield, also located in West Berkshire, is the assembly and dis-assembly site for Trident warheads, and is also run by AWE.
Until the early 1990s AWE was shrouded in secrecy. In 1994, however, John Major's Tory government changed AWE's status to something called "GOCO" - government-owned-contractor-operated. At this time it became a licensed nuclear site and fell under an inspection regime of the Nuclear Installations Insepctorate and the Environment Agency.

The first joint venture company to manage AWE was called Hunting-BRAE, a consortium of Hunting Engineering (manufacturers of cluster bombs, amongst other things), Brown and Root (a Halliburton company) and AEA-Tech.
 
In 2000 the government contract, a 10-year contract worth 2.2 billion pounds, was awarded to a new joint venture company called AWE-ML. This consortium comprises of three different companies, the first one being the American arms giant - and producer of Trident missile bodies - Lockheed Martin. The second is the terminally ill, state-owned nuclear company BNFL, and thirdly the creepy facilities managers SERCo, who amongst both civilian and military contracts here in the UK, is currently also war-profiting from contracts in “building up Iraq”. Something that might be interesting for this Yorkshire-audience to know is that in 1964 SERCo was awarded the first private contract for managing a British military site, the maintenance of the UK Ballistic Missile Early Warning System at RAF Fylingdales, an out-sourcing that at the time must have been quite controversial but which today seems to be the norm.

AWE TODAY AND THE NEW DEVELOPMENTS

So, what is happening currently at AWE Aldermaston and what back-up do we have to claim that the government is looking into a “next generation” of nuclear weapons, a replacement of Trident? Well, there are several bits to this, let me start with the finances.

FINANCES

In August 2002 AWE published their Site Development Strategy Plan. Outlined in this plan were new facilities to be built. Some innocuous, some suspicious. A few months later, in January 2003, AWE's 10-year contract was extended to 25 years and the value of the contract rose to 5.3 billion pounds. Earlier this year AWE received an additional 1 billion pounds for keeping the existing Trident stockpile up and running (and when I say up and running I mean it quite literally: The MoD has this year doubled the number of personnel driving and escorting the nuclear warhead convoys between Burghfield and Coulport in Scotland, using public roads and motorways, this is all part of the so-called “maintenance” of the warheads). All in all this is a lot of money that enables private companies to profit from the production and maintenace of immoral, illegal and at all points in the process extremely dangerous weapons of mass destruction. And who pays the bill? The British tax payers. A big chunk of money for a huge new development – wonder what they are going to use it all for?

GOVERNMENT

Let's have a quick look at what the government says about these new developments and new nukes, apart from the usual “a decision has not yet been taken”. I am now quoting from the Strategic Defence Review 1998:

“Following ratification by the United Kingdom in 1998 of the comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the maintenance of Trident and the capability to build a successor will have to be achieved without conducting nuclear tests. This poses considerable scientific and technical challenges. We are therefore developing a complex science-based programme at AWE that will require special facilities across a variety of diciplines. These are the main drivers for the future development of the Aldermaston site.”

Considering that the existing Trident is due to come out of service in 2024, and that Trident took 14 years to complete from decision to deployment, it certainly seems that the timing is right to begin working on a successor. AWE had to build new facilities to develop Trident then – do we see a pattern here? At the same time AWE are recruiting additional specialist scientists and engineers - for warheads and materials development and testing. Despite denials by the government, the decision point may already have been reached.

NEW FACILITIES

So what are the new developments, what are they going to build? Please excuse me for getting a little bit “techie” here, but the facts are important if we are to campaign successfully against new nukes. In the Site Development Strategy Plan, that I mentioned earlier, there are four elements which, combined together, would enable AWE to design, test and build new nuclear weapons:

Firstly, a new laser facility, called ORION, which will replace the existing HELEN laser (High Energy Laser Embodying Neodymium, the metal element used in the laser glass)and enable the testing of nuclear materials under simulated test conditions, exploring what happens inside a nuclear weapon. The ORION laser will be 10 times stronger than the HELEN laser.

Secondly, a new hydrodynamics facility, which will enable test data to equal that previously only available from underground nuclear tests.

Thirdly, a new material science laboratories, which will also provide underground test quality diagnosis of weapon's materials.

Fourthly, a new supercomputer, which is already in place, will transpose test data into mathematical models of warhead performance. Another one of these is under planning.

In conjunction with these facilities a load of mudular office buildings have also been buildt, by contractors based here in Yorkshire, namely BW Industries, Interlink Building Systems Ltd and Premier Transline Group – all based in East Yorkshire. The office buildings will be used by all the additional staff, which this huge new build will require.

In order to make space for all these new buildings, about 200 old ones will be knocked down. This demolition work, which started some time ago, will increase the levels of radiation and asbestos pollution in the area. Much of the contaminated hardcore from the old buildings will be used as foundations in the new ones, and will therefore be stored on site.

The building work on the first modular office buildings and the IT-buildings started last spring, as far as we know, after having received 'no objections' by the planning committee in West Berkshire in February this year.

HOW DO WE KNOW ALL THIS?

The reason why we know so much about when they started building, how far they've got now, what is happening with the planning process, which companies are involved etc, is because we keep an eye on it all. When I say “we” I refer to people within the Aldermaston Womens Peace Camp(aign), Block the Builders, (I will talk about these later), Nukewatch and other Aldermaston-interested folk. There are people regularly visiting Aldermaston, taking photographs of what they can see of the building sites, spending hours outside the gates and noting down the names of company trucks going in and out, or searching the web for contracts that AWE has awarded this or that company to do the building. This is all part of an incredibly important aspect of the campaign against new nuclear weapons, and, of course, existing ones.

What we are doing is uncovering secrecy, state secrecy, about something that we are not supposed to know about or be concerned about but that we, the public, pay for and that will affect us all in case of an accident or in case the weapons are used. We are carrying out a citizen verification of that this is all taking place, we get down to the real stuff and we keep track of it, we try to do something to stop it, on the ground.

The Aldermaston Womens Peace Camp(aign) has been going now for 20 years, camping once a month outside the perimeter fence at Aldermaston. Put up in opposition to Trident, they have been the driving force behind much of the research about what is happening at Aldermaston, and have actively played a significant role in delaying the planning process. So has the Nuclear Information Service, and lately also the nonviolent direct action campaign Block the Builders, which aims to physically blockade the gates or in other ways interfere and obstruct, even stop, the building of the new facilities in a nonviolent and safe way. Civil resistance has worked before, in many different settings, and if there is a decision on replacing Trident with a new weapon it is my hope that all of you in this room will find your way to a contractor nearby or to the gates of Aldermaston and together with many other sit down in front of them. In fact, it would be good if you joined already now.

PLANNING PROCESS

I will now talk a bit about the Planning Process, as this has proven to be our only way of objecting in a procedural way, if you like.

In order to build any of these facilities AWE has to go through a local planning process, though they have some exemption as crown land (the labour government said it would remove this immunity - but has not yet done so). Planning authority can refuse to support a Notice of Proposed Development, but cannot reject it. If, however, there is no support for the proposed development then the councillors can ask for it to be referred back to the central government. It is this right that the councillors of West Berkshire should exercise.

AWE has submitted several NoPDs already - for IT buildings, accomodation, admin etc, and they all passed without objection from the local planning authority. The current NoPD is for the ORION laser facility itself, and the most important one so far. Just last week the planning committee in West Berkshire came together to object or not to object to this application.

Thanks to a considerable number of protesters present, and over 220 letters of objection, around 150 names on petitions (some of them Swedish!) and people taking the opportunity to speak against the laser in the meeting itself, the councillors decided that the matter should be defered. What AWE has not been able to produce, though asked to do it after the first planning application in February this year, is an over-all Environmental Impact Assessment for the new developments as a whole – not only in piecemeal. AWE is not legally required to do this, but following Defence Secretary John Reids comment earlier this year, all MoD sites are “recommended” to produce an Environmental Impact Assessment – especially the Aldermaston site. The council did what is the least one should expect from a democratically elected council – they said that they needed all the information, including the EIA, that they had not yet received before they could go ahead with a decision. And therefore the decision is being defered. Which is good!

What we are asking these local authoroties is to object to the planning applications, to refer the matter back to the Secretary of State, and that we should have a public inquiry about this whole thing. The matter is too important to be decided on by a local authority in a community hall outside Reading.

SUMMARY

All the things I have talked about we believe is in the context of Trident replacement. In addition to this we must not forget that the US is also developing new nukes, and France is to upgrade their WMDs. It seems to be a trend. There are about 350 science visits exchanged between the equivalent nuclear weapons factories is the US and AWE Aldermaston each year – surely they must be learning something from eachother?

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

This is what Block the Builders, AWPC and others are doing to prevent the facilities where the new nukes will be made, maybe you too would like to join or know more:

• obstruct and slow down planning process and construction work
   

• intervene in and encourage the public debate
  organise effective, well-aimed nonviolent direct action and civil resistance
   

• share our "on the ground" perspective with other campaigners
   

• continue resistance to the existing Trident deployment

The government decision is not yet public, though it may well have already been made. In any case we need to engage with as many people as we can and say No to Trident Replacement together, now.

Thank you for listening.

CONTACT

1. You can get more information at http://www.aldermaston.net  and http://www.blockthebuilders.org.uk
    

2. Join BtB via website or complete form
    

3. Get regular updates about new developments - join tng list (provide email address - note, not a discussion list)

CAMP

1. Established in 1985 by women from nearby Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp who realised UK was up to no good with own nuke programme just down the road
    

2. Monthly, women-only and set up in opposition to Trident
    

3. Is a space from which to organise action and activities - as well as providing a visible oppositional presence
    

4. Typical activities include - events (eg Easter, March, Hiroshima), campaign strands - such as SERCo shareholders and involvement with BtB, plus help nukewatch a bit with moinitoying warhead convoys (deployed from AWE) and organise some NVDA
    

5. We camp all year round have on and off battles with the MoD to maintain our space (recently over the fire). All women are welcome and men can visit in daytime.

Serco notes: