To attend the meetings regarding the consultation on nuclear submarine work in our city is, in my view, becoming more and more of a surreal experience.

The people attending are ordinary Plymouth citizens, most more concerned for their children and grandchildren, than for themselves, such is the long shadow cast by this work. But to me the problem they are presented with appears far from ordinary, indeed so bizarre, so huge in its implications and threat that one feels increasingly divorced from reality. For we, the people of Plymouth, are being asked to consider the Ministry of Defence’s plans to bring 27 nuclear reactors into our city, with various options as to how they might be dealt with, while lodging here, cheek by jowl with our schools and housing.

Which would you prefer? Do you want your nuclear reactors stored in large heavy containers, or smaller, light, much more convenient (for the MoD) boxes? Or how about – a novel experiment for the nuclear industry this one – having our dockyard used for trying out the entire breaking up of each reactor?

The immediate and obvious answer, unless you are still struggling to believe what you have been asked, would appear to ne to be: none of the above. What city would willingly agree to subject its citizens to the risks of living alongside such work? Who wants our beautiful, historic city’s reputation as a tourist centre, and university town to be blighted by the soubriquet ‘Sellafield of the South West’?

But the response to this then leads us into what I find really terrifying country: “Why is Plymouth making a fuss about the dismantling of nuclear submarines in their dockyard, when for years they have tolerated the even riskier business of having submarines efuelled here?” Apparently, had this process suffered mishap, the city would have come to a complete had, and a large part of it forcibly evacuated, as quickly as possible. That is why we hear a practice warning – the dockyard siren – sounded every Monday morning. The mind boggles as to what the authorities imagine the people of Plymouth will, or can do, if or when they hear this siren at any other time. How can one react in any rational way to the staggering demands that Westminster has, for years, placed on our city, and which is now intends to increase? I can only suggest that the citizens of Plymouth demand that no further defuelling takes place at Devonport.

The argument that dismantling must take place in Plymouth because it is the only place in the country which possesses the necessary facilities is, I believe, no longer valid. We no longer have the required equipment, and I firmly believe we should not allow replacements to be brought in. There are many other coastal areas, with nuclear licences, which do not have, like Plymouth, 270,000 vulnerable human beings living alongside. In my opinion one of those must be chosen to set up the new defuelling facility.

Let us hope that future employment for Plymouth dockyard will be coming from the surface fleet and other work previously carried out by Portsmouth.

Unfortunately, owing to all “consultation” process being low key and highly convoluted, there has I feel been minimal protests from our city, regarding the infliction of nuclear work on Plymouth. I believe this demonstrates a lack of concern from Westminster for the health and safety of our citizens, and in my opinion has been a decisive factor in Westminster’s choice of site for the incinerator. I believe that our national government thinks if Plymouth will tolerate the nuclear threat, we will tolerate anything.

B Merriott, Plymouth.