The Ministry of Defence (MOD), operates, berths, and maintains nuclear powered submarines and warships in Devonport. The Devonport Site covers the land owned by the MOD and Devonport Royal Dockyard Ltd (DRDL). This includes the Dockyard Port of Plymouth.
The Radiation (Emergency Preparedness and Public Information) Regulations 2019 (REPPIR) place a duty on local authorities, where there is a regulated nuclear establishment, to protect the public in the unlikely event of a radiation emergency.
REPPIR requires the MOD and DRDL, the Devonport Site operators, to have emergency plans in place. It also obliges local authorities to provide prior information to people who live, or work, in the area surrounding the Devonport Site who may be affected by a radiation emergency.
The off-site emergency plan for the area around the Devonport Site is called the Devonport Off-site Emergency Plan (DOSEP). This plan is drawn up by Plymouth City Council.
DOSEP gives details of the roles to be played by the MOD, DRDL, the emergency services and other responding agencies in the event of a radiation emergency.
Plymouth City Council, Cornwall Council and Devon County Council have determined specific areas around the Devonport Site, the offshore berths, and anchorages to which the off-site plan is applied. These are the detailed emergency planning zones and the outline planning zones.
Each detailed emergency planning zone (DEPZ) is an area around the Devonport Site, which extends to a minimum distance of 1.5km from the operational submarine berths.
In addition, an outline planning zone (OPZ) which is an area which extends to a distance of 5km from a central point in the Devonport Site, The OPZs are areas intended to support responding agencies’ decision making and allow detailed planning to extend to particularly vulnerable groups in the outline planning zone.
In defining these areas Plymouth City Council, Cornwall Council and Devon County Council worked with the site operators (MOD and DRDL), who considered the potential consequences should an incident occur. The operators’ consequences reports are available below.
Plymouth City Council, Cornwall Council and Devon County Council provide prior information to people who live or work in the area surrounding the Devonport Site, the offshore berths and anchorages who may be affected by a radiation emergency.
The booklet "What You Should Do if There Is a Radiation Emergency at the Devonport Site’’, is published every three years and distributed to households and businesses in the detailed emergency planning zones. An Easy Read version of this booklet is also available.
Both booklets can be downloaded from this page.
If you are a resident or a local business in the area, you can sign up to our Emergency Notification System 'warning and informing' text messaging service. This system will notify you in the very unlikely event of a nuclear emergency.