A freedom of information request has revealed that a nuclear crash exercise held at MoD Longtown was ‘beset by blunders’, according to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

The exercise, codenamed Senator 2018, took place in October 2018 was designed to simulate a “catastrophic” accident on the M6 near Carlisle involving a collision between a northbound nuclear weapons convoy and a southbound lorry imagined to have lost control, crossing the central reservation somewhere between junctions 42 and 43 of the M6 and crashing into a nuclear warhead carrier.

It was imagined that this collision would have caused the “partial detonation” of conventional high explosive in a nuclear warhead and a fire, which would have resulted in “a plume of radioactive material” which would have been “carried on an easterly wind towards Carlisle” where the public would have been advised to stay indoors to avoid radioactive contamination.

The reports released in the freedom of information request conclude that “overall Senator was an adequate test of the emergency arrangements” but also highlight several areas of concern.

One such concern was that nuclear convoy vehicles didn’t have enough bags of medical equipment for dealing with injuries and another was that radiation monitoring teams were said to be “clearly inexperienced” and that radiation monitoring errors included one set of points which were plotted incorrectly by a factor of 1,000 times,” according to the regulators.

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There were also shortages of vital medical equipment and “poor” arrangements for casualties.

Local CND spokesperson, Philip Gilligan said: “These Freedom of Information requests were first made in January 2019, but the MoD took four years to release the reports. This is perhaps unsurprising given the level of very dangerous confusion and inadequate preparation they reveal.

“Events such as those envisaged by the exercise at Longtown would, not only be extremely complex, but they would also be extremely dangerous, but it seems that the MoD is extremely ill-prepared.”

According to Mr Gilligan The MoD frequently use the M6 in Cumbria to transport nuclear warheads.

An MOD spokesperson said: “As required by UK legislation and Ministry of Defence policy, we have a wide ranging and planned programme of Defence nuclear emergency exercises and demonstrations, including for the transportation of Defence nuclear material.

“Routine exercises such as Senator 2018 are conducted regularly to demonstrate our preparedness to respond to any incident, no matter how unlikely.”