A £15bn replacement for Britain’s arsenal is being designed at Aldermaston under the pro-nuclear Labour government
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estled in the heart of rural Berkshire, the 300-hectare (750-acre) military complex at Aldermaston is an incongruous sight. It comprises a mix of 1950s and 1960s institutional buildings, heated by a steam tube system more familiar in Soviet structures, and a handful of modern offices, several of which are in the process of being built.
But the technology inside the complex, one of Britain’s most sensitive defence locations, is far from that era of cold-war hostility. The sprawling campus is the largest of three locations where Britain manufactures its nuclear warheads – and where the UK will design and build a £15bn replacement for its current arsenal without making a single explosive test.
Armed police with carbine rifles patrol and watch from the rooftops, protecting the nuclear materials and the site’s 7,500 employees. The staff work for AWE, the former Atomic Weapons Establishment, whose project is at the heart of Labour plans to revitalise nuclear with weaponry that may last to the 2070s.
