Government bid to make bombs QUIETER revealed as campaigners slam six-year scheme
MANDARINS spent six years figuring out quieter ways to detonate wartime bombs around shellfish and other sea life.
Offshore firms are to avoid noisy blasts when disposing of munitions on the seabed under new guidelines.
And documents show how Westminster and Holyrood officials began looking at ways to cut “damage and injury” to marine life as far back as 2019.
Campaigners last night demanded to how much the “bureaucratic navel-gazing” had cost the public purse since then.
William Yarwood of the TaxPayers Alliance said: “Only civil servants could spend six years trying to make bombs quieter.
“While essential services are stretched and the national debt climbs, civil servants have been obsessing over fish.
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"Ministers need to stop indulging in this bureaucratic navel-gazing and stick to what works.”
Unexploded mines, bombs and other weapons from the First and Second World Wars are scattered around Scots waters.
They must be cleared to make infrastructure like oil platforms and fishing grounds safe.
For years the relics have been blown up in loud “high order” explosions.
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But new Scottish Government guidance to firms last month, agreed with counterparts in England and Wales, recommends “lower noise” alternatives.
In a report, civil servants said: “As less energy is emitted into the marine environment, the potential effect is lower than for high-order clearance.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said an "increase in marine construction projects is leading to the discovery of more unexploded ordnance".
And they said this "needs to be cleared to protect human life and infrastructure".
They added: "Removal by detonation can lead to seabed damage and injury and disturbance to marine species, some with protected status, from the associated noise.
“It was therefore essential that we worked to promote alternatives that cause less environmental harm and the publication of the accompanying marine licensing guidance is important to assist those who carry out the activity in complying.”
