by Keith Richmond
Eight hundred anti-nuclear activists blocked all entrances to the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire on Monday to prevent building work starting in preparation for the production of new nuclear warheads. Protesters were joined by two Nobel Peace Prize laureates, landmine campaigner Jody Williams and Mairead Maguire of the Peace People in Northern Ireland, to raise the issue of the Trident replacement in the run-up to the general election.
CND chair Kate Hudson said: “Spending on new facilities at Aldermaston has increased 17-fold over the past decade, from £24 million in 2000 to £420 million last year, in spite of Government denials that any decision has been taken to go ahead with new warheads. The Prime Minister says he wants Britain to take a lead on nuclear disarmament but he cannot do this if he is spending billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money upgrading Britain’s nuclear bomb factory at Aldermaston.”
