Gary's views

Gary's weekly views

Each week an article by Gary has appeared in the Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge News in South West Devon. The articles are published here

2007

2007 promises to be a year of momentous decisions locally. Soon an internal Navy review board will recommend to the Ministry of Defence how to save money on its naval base infrastructure, in short: whether Portsmouth or Devonport Naval Base should be closed. For many of us, the recent cuts to our Navy are already too deep and short-sighted. I do not welcome the down-sizing of our armed forces in this way or the closure of either naval base, but if there has to be one, naturally, I am fighting tooth and nail for Devonport to prevail. In many ways, this decision dwarfs the Trident decision of 1993 because if the government decide to close Devonport, the dockyard would also shrivel away to next to nothing. But for once all of the arguments, strategic, financial and military support our case for Devonport to be the remaining south coast naval base. We have a smart and united campaign in this region to try and extract the right decision from the corridors of power and it will be a very real focus in the coming months.

Linked to this is the future of the dockyard, caught up in the swirling changes impacting the defence procurement industry. At the moment, Devonport Management Limited is owned by a US company that seems indifferent to the long term prosperity of the yard or this region. The government is threatening to exercise its rights as a special shareholder in DML to bring the company back into UK ownership. But the likely new owner will be an existing UK defence company with other interests to protect in other parts of the country, maybe even Babcock which owns Rosyth. So will the long term future of Devonport be near the top of their priority list? All of this will also come to maturity in the next few weeks and needs careful watching.
Closer to home final decisions on the new settlement at Sherford will be signed off by an independent inspector in the next four months. Although we cannot stop this unwanted settlement from happening, many decisions, especially on how to deal with the increased traffic flows, have yet to be determined. The public examination of current plans starts in late January and the outcomes will impact all of us living east of the Plym.

One way or another, it is clear that 2007 is not going to pass us by quietly.
Happy New Year!

posted by Nigel on Thursday, January 18, 2007