Shoebury Ranges

Support our Troops on Foulness

I recently visited Foulness Island where amongst other issues we discussed the noise limits in place on military training courses. My interest in Foulness is certainly not a new one, I regularly make visits to the island and have been a pass holder since I became a Member of Parliament in 2005, I also visited as a candidate. I have held a number of meetings with the Secretary of State, Ministers and other officials about Foulness Island on regular occasions over the past five years.

Foulness Island has been owned by the Ministry of Defence since 1915, and has for decades been used as a training ground for armed forces personnel, although this is not its primary purpose, the island has been operated and managed by QinetiQ since 2001. The work carried out on the island centres around three main areas, disposal of ordnance for the UK Ministry of Defence (known as demilitarisation, or ‘demil’ for short), batch testing and research and development (also known as trials) for which Foulness provides a uniquely good environment. A fourth activity which takes a more minor role is the training of troops.

During my last visit to the island I was deeply concerned to learn that training could not be fully completed on three of the last four training exercises undertaken on the island owing to a contractual noise limit of 125 dB which had been put in place in 2003. I therefore asked in the House during Defence Questions on 22nd February 2010 whether the Minister of State or the Secretary of State would discuss with QinetiQ the possibility of increasing that limit. I also noted that local residents would appreciate that is necessary work which has to be carried out to ensure that our troops are properly trained before they go into theatre.

I have spoken to a number of my constituents about this issue and find them to be concerned about the overall noise level, but supportive of doing everything they can to support our troops. I believe that the work which is done on Foulness is invaluable. Sadly Improvised Explosive Devices were the cause of over 80 per cent of British deaths in Afghanistan last year, in fact the day after I asked my question I was saddened to learn that another British soldier had lost his life as the result of a roadside bomb. If unexploded bombs are not disposed of in conflict zones they can be used as Improvised Explosive Devices or for parts of Improvised Explosive Devices .

The work which is undertaken at Foulness has been ongoing for decades, and I very strongly believe it is crucial that our troops are trained to undertake their jobs properly to ensure that once they are in Afghanistan that they can safely dispose of as many types of improvised Improvised Explosive Devices as possible and save more British soldiers lives. Having been out to Afghanistan myself and having seen the difficult work undertaken by our armed forces I sympathise how difficult the job is. Whilst I appreciate the inconvenience which the training causes to many residents, I would urge residents to consider the wider implications of the work which is undertaken on Foulness, and its importance in ensuring that our troops are properly trained before arriving in theatre. Foulness Island is a vital resource for the Ministry of Defence and is one of the few locations in the country where our troops can carry out this specialist training. I believe that as a community we should get behind our armed forces and be proud of the crucial work that they are doing in Afghanistan and the specialised training that they receive in our local area.

In our local area, extensive monitoring of the island and areas across South East Essex is undertaken prior to potentially noisy activity taking place. Vast amounts of work is undertaken by QinetiQ to ensure that the self imposed limit of 125dB is not breached across all these monitoring sites,. This limit was initially set by the Ministry of Defence in conjunction with QinetiQ a number of years ago. I know that QinetiQ has invested in technology which is used by range control, including weather monitoring and acoustic forecasting, which enables the assessment of the impact of both cloud cover and wind speed and direction on noise and vibrations, and that a great amount of monitoring takes place prior to potentially noisy activity taking place. I am aware that the vast majority of complaints that are made relate to training and not the primary activities on the island which are demil and trials.

A number of years ago a report was commissioned by Vibrock Ltd to look into the impact of vibrations of all the activities which were carried out on Foulness. It was found that quite often complaints which had been received about noise held no correlation whatsoever with activity on Foulness. It was concluded that the vibration must have been the result of activity elsewhere, or other noise pollutants. The report is publicly available and I will post this on my website for my constituents’ information.

I want to express that I am not asking the Ministry of Defence to increase the limit for all activity undertaken on the site, but to review it in relation to the training of troops before they go out to Afghanistan. This training takes place approximately ten times per year, and each course lasts six weeks. During this time only two of those days are spent on Foulness Island, when a series of detonations may be undertaken over a short period of time, usually about one hour.

The point of this training is to provide a safe environment in which to teach military personnel to diffuse a range of explosive devices with minimum noise and risk to troops. This is done in as realistic scenario as possible to that which they would experience in the operational theatre. It is only if the bomb detonates in an unexpected way that a noise nuisance may be created. If there is a chance that an activity could breech the 125dB limit, then the work is postponed and training cannot go ahead.

Therefore my proposal to the Ministry of Defence is to review the noise limit of an activity which has the potential to impact only a few times a year. In the last four courses detonation reached 125dB very rarely, These figures set against the benefit of troops being fully prepared ahead of Afghanistan demonstrate to me that the limit needs to be reviewed to ensure that our troops are fully prepared for theatre.