Nuclear weapons: Concern over reports missiles were parked overnight metres from Lancashire primary school

Members of the Cumbria and Lancashire Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament say they are "horrified" that a Ministry of Defence (MoD) convoy believed to carrying nuclear missiles was parked close to Weeton Primary School on Monday night and Tuesday morning.

The school, which is run by Lancashire County Council, is based on the barracks.

The CND say they heard from Nukewatch that the military convoy which left the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Burghfield in Berkshire around lunchtime on Monday stopped overnight at Weeton Barracks, leaving there late on Tuesday morning en-route to Coulport in Scotland where submarines armed with nuclear weapons are based.

It comes after a similar convoy was filmed “with sirens wailing” on Golden Way, Penwortham on July 29 and after residents were alarmed by a “huge" and “unmarked military convoy” photographed travelling along Eastway in Fulwood on March 23.

Philip Gilligan of Cumbria and Lancashire CND said: "Nuclear weapons have no place next to a primary school.

"It is bad enough that these potentially very dangerous convoys are being driven up and down the M6 and our local roads with ever increasing frequency, but it is especially horrifying to learn that these weapons of mass destruction were parked so close to a Primary School.

"It is surely unacceptable that young children were doing their morning lessons within a few hundred metres of lorries known to carry nuclear missiles.

"Our children, grandchildren and our whole world would be much safer without nuclear weapons. It is time to get them off our roads and away from our primary schools.”

What do the Ministry of Defence say?

An MOD spokesperson said: “We do not comment on the details of defence transport operations.

“Defence nuclear materials are transported only when necessary, and the safety and security of the public are the highest priority.

“All convoy operations follow strict and safe procedures, and we are equipped to respond to any incident, no matter how unlikely.”

The MOD did point out that in over 50 years of transporting nuclear material by road in the UK, there has never been an incident that has posed any radiation hazard to the public or the environment.

The school has been contacted for comment.