Peterborough City Council to hear call for nuclear test apology

Councillors met with veterans in Peterborough to champion their cause

A councillor has called for a government apology to veterans exposed to nuclear testing in the 1950s.

Peterborough City Council member Katy Cole has tabled a motion to be debated at a meeting next week.

She claims the experiments impacted the health of the men who witnessed it - and their children.

The government rejects that and insists the tests met safety standards at the time.

Nuclear tests were carried out between 1952 and 1991 in Christmas Island, Malden Island, the Nevada Desert and Australia.

Medals to those who witnessed them have now been issued - but the city's Labour and Cooperative Party says that does not go far enough

'Guinea pigs'

Ms Cole, Labour and Cooperative Party member for Dogsthorpe, believes her motion is the first of its kind in the country and says she hopes other local authorities will follow suit. 

Her colleague Alan Dowson, was among those who witnessed the tests while stationed with the RAF on Christmas Island.

Ms Cole claims the men were treated as "guinea pigs" and she had been in "floods of tears" after hearing their "heart breaking stories".

She is also calling for children at local schools and colleges to be taught about British nuclear testing.

The motion also suggests the Town Hall be lit up in yellow next October to mark the occasion of the UK's first nuclear test.

The government accepts tens of thousands of military personnel were exposed to nuclear bombs.

The tests were carried out in accordance with safety standards at the time, it says, and subsequent testing has not proven nuclear testing veterans were exposed to harm.