Petition against Horsea Island Closure

[MattS]

Please sign the #10 petition:

Re-opening of Horsea Island Dive Centre, to the general public.

Well that's it then. I took a couple of would be Ocean Divers for their very first dives at Horsea Lake on Sunday and that is the first they have seen of it. At this stage it is likely the last I, they, or anyone else outside the MOD will see of it. The site is now closed to civilians completely.

A group of us are trying to resist the closure of Horsea Lake to civilians.

We had a bit of a success yesterday when The News, the leading newspaper in Portsmouth and the surrounding areas, printed a letter we sent last Friday. Not just stuffed in a column at the bottom of the page but in a nice big yellow box with a headline and everything. From what we can make out at this stage the local paper are interested in picking it up as a story and some other bodies have stated an interest in making some noise.

Messages of support would be really appreciated.

• If you think Horsea has helped to make you or someone you know a safer diver,
• Fostered an interest in conservation or marine archaeology for instance.
• Helped you to volunteer within the community (instructing in an amateur club for instance).
• If you have ever tested equipment there.
• Taken a useful course.
• Have courses booked which now face cancellation.
• Some other positive influence Horsea Lake has had on your diving.

Please write a brief note expressing your disappointment at the new restrictions. To ask one thing more, please sign your messages with a full name as a minimum, full address would be better. CathDarton is coordinating through the divesearch.co.uk - UK Dive Charter Boat Search - Main Page web site.

We have no idea whether we can change anything, but if we do nothing it is certain nothing will change.

Thanks for your attention.

Please sign the #10 petition:Re-opening of Horsea Island Dive Centre, to the general public.

[MattS]

Text of the original letter we sent. They murdered the grammar a bit when they edited it but I will not hold it against them

To the Editor,

MOD to Ban Access to Horsea Lake this Sunday

From Sunday (29th June) the Royal Navy will no longer allow civilians to use Horsea Lake for scuba diver training purposes. The decision appears to have been reached very quickly and protests from the local and National diving communities have been ignored.

I am shocked by the decision and the lack of consultation.

This is more than just a sport needing a venue.

Horsea Lake (a part of HMS Excellent) has been used by civilian divers for over 10 years. It is the only salt water lake in the UK and is regarded as about the safest place in the country for divers to prepare, before taking on the far greater challenges of diving at sea in less predictable conditions. The lake is the preferred choice of diver training venue for dive schools, amateur diving clubs, Marine Conservation and Underwater Archaeology groups.

Thousands of divers from across the South East have been introduced to scuba diving at Horsea Lake. There is very little shelter along the coast between Portsmouth and Brighton so many divers continue to use the lake as a safe place to test their equipment is working and to keep their skills practiced.

The closest alternative venues that are remotely suitable are around 100 miles away.

Civilian access to Horsea Lake is vitally important for local divers as the underwater conditions of the Solent are more challenging than most. There is a very real safety issue at stake here. If the MOD have their way some divers will choose not to prepare properly and will make mistakes at sea with dire consequences.

Workable solutions have been found to allow civilians access to Royal Navy establishments, such as the Historic Dockyard. In these days when we are all concerned with reducing carbon footprints and the strain placed on emergency services, it seems ridiculous that the MOD cannot find a compromise which will ensure civilians continue to be able to use this unique and Nationally important diving facility.

If you would like to send a note in support of keeping Horsea open to civilian divers please email cathATdivesearch.co.uk

Matt Stevens,
Diving Officer, Spinnaker Divers

Cath Darton,
divesearch.co.uk - UK Dive Charter Boat Search - Main Page

Spinnaker Divers is Portsmouth’s newest diving club. A branch of the British Sub Aqua Club, we meet at Stamshaw Lake Angling Club and teach local people to scuba dive on a volunteer basis. The divesearch.co.uk - UK Dive Charter Boat Search - Main Page web site aims to promote participation in marine conservation projects to amateur scuba divers.

[MattS]

So we are all clear, the closure is purely down to the Navy prohibiting access to civilians. Nothing to do with football clubs and lakeside developments.

It's a bit selfish of the RN to have it all to themselves. We are paying for it after all. Surely a a bit of notice and consultation would not have endangered National Security too badly.

I wonder what the ratio of civillian divers to military divers trained there over the last ten years is....a pause for thought.

The RN Response

Dear Ms Darton.

Thank you for your email of 23 June 2008 to the CO of HMS Excellent concerning the closure of Horsea Island to civilian divers. Your correspondence has been passed to this office and I have been asked to respond on behalf of the Royal Navy.

The arrangement under which the Royal Navy has operated the facility on Horsea Island has been the subject of an internal review. An increase in the requirement for Service diver training and a Security Assessment of the site, which identified the need for an armed security presence, has resulted in decision not to allow regular civilian access to the site in future.

Regarding the security procedures related to the Naval Base, you may wish to be aware that each establishment will have systems in place related to the business and security needs of that location. The assessment of Horsea Island is that the future use of civilians regularly operating inside this location is untenable.

I appreciate that this news may come as a disappointment to a number of organisations that have previously used this facility. However, the decision has been taken by the Royal Navy for operational and organisational reasons and there are no plans to review it at this time.

Yours sincerely,
Navy Command HQ
Policy Secretariat,

[Norbert]

Matt

We have also sent in a piece for the News, which we hope will be published in the next day or so.

I will also be sending in a reply to your letter that was published echoing your sentiments.

Thirdly, I will today be writing to the CO at HMS Excellent and the admin chappie at Whale Island (from whom Cath received her rather taciturn reply) to try and find out why there was no consultation and to try and get to the bottom of why this has had toi happen so rapidly (I am told that it is down to a new CO taking over who is Army rather than Navy).

Come on all you lot out there in tiniterweb-land - the more letters and e-mails that can be fired off, the more chance there is that Horsea can be kept open - however remote that may seem.

[Cussy]

Good luck with this. Hope the Senior-Service see sense.

[colinicky]

As a slight detour are they still going to allow use of the recompression chambers ? otherwise it will put a lot more burden on the others & the resulting loss in saftey etc ?

[MattS]

Thanks for the support Nick.

I tend to think that if access is lost it may well be lost for ever.

The letter in the News seems to have sparked quite a few people into action. Cath is pretty busy replying to everyone. I will see if we can get permission to post some of the letters up here.

The new CO thing makes a bit of sense. Hopefully this is a unilateral decision and the MOD will entertain a review if we can keep the pressure on.

Please don't be shy people. Every letter and well wisher helps.

[Tankbanger]

Emailed Cath, cheers for the heads up Matt.

[GLOC]

Originally Posted by colinicky

As a slight detour are they still going to allow use of the recompression chambers ? otherwise it will put a lot more burden on the others & the resulting loss in saftey etc ?

Colin, this may sound like a rather contenious reply but the Armed Forces are not there to support the civilian population, they are not funded as such. The funding and establishment will be based on x number of service people requiring recompression due to the chances of x number of service people diving/being underwater and having an accident/incident. The fact that they can treat civilian people, if they are not being used for service reasons, is a bonus. I am not sure how the payment for the use of those chambers is done though but I very much doubt the local unit see any of the monies.

The same goes for Military Search and Rescue assets conducting civilian search and rescue but they are not formally established for that process.

Service establishments provide a 'free' service for the diving population, but you cannot use the reduction in service assets as something which would reduce yours or the diving population in general's safety if that asset was taken away. If you need a chamber you need to make sure there are suitable civilian chambers available.

Sorry for the hijack Matt, good luck with the access.

Regards

[MattS]

Service establishments provide a 'free' service for the diving population, but you cannot use the reduction in service assets as something which would reduce yours or the diving population in general's safety if that asset was taken away. If you need a chamber you need to make sure there are suitable civilian chambers available.

The principle may be sound but I don't think it is quite that clear cut these days. The military population are increasingly integrated with the civilian population and it does all seem to be about sharing costs.

As best I know the chambers at Horsea have not been used for re-compressing diving casualties for years, if ever. They are stored there for rapid deployment and (possibly) training purposes. The operational chambers *were* located at RMH Haslar, where the Army and Navy used to send their medical staff for HBO training. Haslar has since been downsized considerably and there is only one chamber located there now. The other chambers were re-located to the civilian NHS hospital (Queen Alexandra) along with the Defence HBO training facilities and staff.

Sorry for the hijack Matt, good luck with the access.

Don't worry about the hijack. It had crossed my mind that there are a lot of military personnel in the diving community and they might not take kindly to civvies using 'their' lake. The responses received from former and serving Navy divers have so far all been positively behind keeping Horsea open to civvies on safety grounds.

My thanks to everyone taking the trouble to respond.

We need well stated objections to the closure and we need lots of them.