Four British air-dropped tail-fuze armour piercing bombs, buried in a field in the Route Isabelle and Le Foulon area, were highlighted as being of concern in 2024.
Pressure from bomb disposal expert Ben Remfrey saw the States look again at the concerns, which had previously been examined in an assessment in 2019.
Yesterday the Committee for Home Affairs announced that following expert guidance, it would be leaving the ordnance where they are.
‘We were presented with a range of different options and had input from subject experts and the analysis has been undertaken,’ said Home Affairs president Marc Leadbeater.
‘The options included removing and disposing of the ordnance off-site or dealing with it on-site.
‘Those were discounted for various reasons and it was determined that the best course of action is to leave them where they are in situ, because it’s highly unlikely they were ever armed in the first place, which means they will continue happily laying 8m underneath good old Guernsey soil for another 80 years and beyond.’
Other options included excavating the bombs and transporting them to the beach, floating them out to sea and detonating them offshore.
An evacuation cordon up to 1.5km would have likely been required for several days.
The cordon would have then had to move with the ordnance while it was relocated.
The British Army would not have support excavating the ordnance and detonating it in situ.
‘When you hear of unexploded ordnance, it can set hares running.
'We had to look at this sensibly and pragmatically and use proper subject matter experts to be able to determine what level of risk, if any, these pieces of ordnance pose,’ said Deputy Leadbeater.
‘All of the evidence pointed towards leaving them in situ being the safest option.’
The probability of major damage from the bombs has been classed as ‘highly unlikely’, between 10% and 20%.
The probability of minor damage, including fine cracks in plaster or dry wall joints, was said to be ‘unlikely’, at between 25% and 35%.
No damage or cosmetic damage was classed as ‘realistic possibility’ at between 40% and less than 50%.
A report from Nato’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technical Information Centre said that none of the bombs functioned, although one is believed to have suffered dynamic breakup through impact.
‘Evidence supports that the bomb fuses are unlikely to be armed. The bombs and their fusing system are highly unlikely to spontaneously detonate.’
The bombs were dropped from a British Short Stirling Bomber after an aborted raid on a German naval vessel near the coast of France.
It is believed they were dropped by the crew to empty the aircraft after the raid was called off.
‘There’s an incredibly low chance of them going off. We can never say never, but none of these types of weapons since the Second World War have ever spontaneously detonated, and the risk is as low as it could be,’ said Channel Islands emergency planning officer Kevin Murphy.
‘If in the absolutely bizarre circumstance that one did go off, there’s very little chance of sympathetic detonation in the other weapons.’
He said that if one of the bombs did detonate, the effect would be very minor, with the most likely prediction being no damage at all.
It would be a camouflet, an underground explosion, which would collapse into itself, and most people in the area would not feel anything.
There may be some ground tremor and in the worst case, some minor cosmetic damage to very close buildings.
‘There is absolutely no risk to life at all from these bombs according to the report we’ve had,’ said Mr Murphy.
‘Ordnance is just a risk that we have. We were involved in the Second World War and Guernsey was bombed, so we are very aware of it, and the police EOD team locally do dispose of ordnance on a sporadic but reasonably regular basis.
‘We are all very well used to dealing with it, it’s not something we need to discuss regularly, but we are very much aware of it and it does get dealt with.’
A spokesman from the UK Ministry of Defence said that its aim was to enable the States to make informed decisions and ensure public safety.
Deputy Leadbeater said that from a Home Affairs point of view, he was ‘totally satisfied’ that the right people had been consulted.
‘We’ve looked at every single option, we’ve discounted every option apart from the one we’ve arrived at, which is to leave them safely and securely eight metres below terra firma,’ he said.
‘I’d like to provide reassurance that we’ve left no stone unturned here. The decision was not made due to cost, it was made purely from a community safety perspective.’
He thanked everyone involved, including Mr Remfrey, who first identified the issue to the emergency planning team at the States.
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