§ Mr. Donald Stewartasked the Secretary of State for Defence how much additional land will be taken over by the Ministry of Defence for the purpose of extending the Coulport base for Trident; how much land is presently owned by his Ministry at Coulport; and if he will express the figures in hectares.
§ Mr. BlakerThe present Royal Navy armament depot at Coulport comprises 128 hectares. It is estimated that a further area of 939 hectares would be needed for the new Trident depot, of which 397 hectares are at present used to provide Army training facilities. The land requirement for Trident would be larger than that for Polaris mainly because Trident with its larger rocket motor requires larger buildings spaced further apart, and on the Rosneath peninsula, it has been decided to contain safety distances within defence land.