Could Polaris have been based in Wales?

Apparently the list of potential Polaris bases (back when it was drawn up) included Milford Haven in SW Wales. It was apparently snubbed in favour of Faslane because Milford Haven was a village instead of a proper town back then, and it couldn't be done now because it has LNG facilities.
But suppose that RNMD Milford Haven gets expanded to house Polaris (and presumably, a slightly butterflied Trident). What does this do to Welsh and Scottish politics by the nineties?
 
I'm not sure- though I do know that Bertrand Russell lived about a hundred miles north in Penrhyndeudraeth and did several events at a village nearby, of which some were critical of nuclear weapons. (Said village was ironically used as the foreground for a missile launch in a noted work of TV fiction.)
 
Apparently the list of potential Polaris bases (back when it was drawn up) included Milford Haven in SW Wales. It was apparently snubbed in favour of Faslane because Milford Haven was a village instead of a proper town back then, and it couldn't be done now because it has LNG facilities.
But suppose that RNMD Milford Haven gets expanded to house Polaris (and presumably, a slightly butterflied Trident). What does this do to Welsh and Scottish politics by the nineties?

Watch for a little name confusion.

Milford Haven is the waterway; Pembroke Dock was established as a Royal Navy dockyard in 1814; Milford was founded a few years earlier on the opposite side of the waterway, and early residents included Nantucket whalers.

Given the first oil refinery opened in 1960, Polaris basing would have been challenging, as would the conflict with Pembroke Dock's spaceship building programme in the 70s.;)
 
Having spent much of the last three years working on planning for a project in Milford Haven, something I know a lot about, at last!

There are several inlets suitable for Polaris and Trident submarines. Some of these would require the, lets say, removal of some small existing properties and homes, but would otherwise be suitable.

The problem is what else it is used for. It's the finest deep water port in Europe (was that Nelson?) and putting SSBNs there would potentially sterilise it for use as a major oil (and now gas) port over the succeeding 40 years.
 
Watch for a little name confusion.

Milford Haven is the waterway; Pembroke Dock was established as a Royal Navy dockyard in 1814; Milford was founded a few years earlier on the opposite side of the waterway, and early residents included Nantucket whalers.

Given the first oil refinery opened in 1960, Polaris basing would have been challenging, as would the conflict with Pembroke Dock's spaceship building programme in the 70s.;)

Err... What?
Yes, there's a smiley, but I don't get the reference.
 
Given that its West Wales, there might be similar problems with nationalists as there are with Faslane, though currently the area is blue after the last election.
 
Given that its West Wales, there might be similar problems with nationalists as there are with Faslane, though currently the area is blue after the last election.

South Pembrokeshire has for centuries been known as "Little England beyond Wales" so it's not a natural territory for Plaid Cymru. More importantly I think a site in the Milford Haven waterway is not as close to the main population centre of the country as the sites on the Clyde are to Glasgow - the idea of having British and American nuclear bases almost in the commuter suburbs of the biggest city in the country is very powerful one. OTOH if the nukes are based in Milford Haven, and that prevents it's much more worthwhile use as an port serving industrial South Wales, I'm sure PC and unilateralist South Wales Labour MPs will strongly object to it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_England_beyond_Wales
 
Milford Haven is BIG...

...Why should the naval and refinery operations conflict? It comes down to traffic-control and turning Pembroke Dock into another Faslane.
 
Didn't seem to hinder Norfolk Virginia
If anything, they're natural allies. Both need fairly large exclusion zones, they may as well share. :p

Downstream consequences: when Rosyth naval base closes (four bases were untenable with reductions in fleet size) the Royal Navy has no significant permanent presence. With the RAF mission of sanitising the approaches to Milford Haven to protect the deterrent, St Mawgan is kept over Kinloss. This makes precisely no difference to the RAF, who still complain about how far it is from London. Scotland becomes even more of an Army monoculture as far as the military goes, so that amalgamating the Scottish regiments causes an even bigger backlash. Whilst the Scottish Nationalists don't have the stick of nuclear weapons to beat London with, they've got further evidence of how Westminster consistently favours England and Wales over Scotland, which probably translates into slightly better electoral performance.
 
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