Herefordshire will flag up to the government its readiness to take millions of pounds of investment in defence industries, including once again making munitions, councillors have pledged – though not all agreed.
Liberal Democrat Councillor Ed O’Driscoll told fellow members that following the government’s recent Strategic Defence Review (SDR) which set out plans for billions of pounds of investment in the sector including at least six new munitions factories, “the question is whether Herefordshire will play a meaningful part in it”.
The county “is not starting from scratch”, with the UK’s only defence and security-focused enterprise zone, at Rotherwas southeast of Hereford, previously a centre of wartime munitions production, as well as an engineering focussed university, NMITE, he pointed out.
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Under a motion he proposed, the council must write to the government to “highlight the county’s strategic readiness to host defence-related investment, including a munitions facility”.
“If we want better services, we need a stronger economy,” Coun O’Driscoll urged.
Coun O’Driscoll’s LibDem colleague Coun Aubrey Oliver said “the essential thing in a war is ammunition and munitions, and we are absolutely short of munitions factories” as the UK’s efforts to support Ukraine militarily have shown.
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But while “fully supporting” the motion, Green councillor Stef Simmons questioned “the narrow focus on attracting a munitions factory”, given this “ceased 80 years ago” in the county.
“I would be astonished if we managed to attract one of the six factories proposed in the SDR,” which offers many more opportunities at the high-tech end of the sector, she said.
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Her party colleague Rebecca Tully said there were “multiple towns in the UK which contains a munitions facility for a UK defence prime, with eye-watering health deprivation scores”, while some such firms “profit from genocide”.
And Independents for Herefordshire (i4H) group leader Coun Liz Harvey said the council “should not expend its energies resurrecting an industry which killed many workers, both quickly and slowly”.
The motion was passed with most Green and i4H councillors abstaining or voting against.
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