Woodward calls on government to ensure future naval dismantling work is handled in UK.
Institute of Demolition Engineers’ president John Woodward has hit back at the UK government’s decision to allow one of its foremost aircraft carriers to be dismantled and scrapped outside of the UK.
“I am annoyed and amazed that the UK Government has allowed HMS Invincible to be sold for scrap and then dismantled in Aliaga in Turkey. I realise that tenders are driven by price but surely the government should have ensured that the ship stayed in the UK. We have purpose built ship recycling facilities at Hartlepool, Tyneside, Belfast, Merseyside and in Scotland and any of these could have done the job keeping employment in the UK,” Woodward says.
Woodward also calls into question the methods of dismantling being employed by the crew in Turkey. “From the photograph on the BBC website, it looks like work is done in a different way to here in the UK as the ship is floating whilst being dismantled, rather than being in a dry dock, so I have my concerns as to how they control spillage of hydrocarbons into the sea,” he says. “I am now calling on the government to act to ensure that all future UK navy ships are dismantled in the UK, with skilled UK workers rather than being allowed to cross the oceans to be broken up on a foreign land. Remember that these ships served to defend our country in times of conflict and we should never forget that, or just allow them to be demolished away from the UK.”
