HMS Astute torpedoes ETV cuts plan
Anglian Princess is one of the four threatened ETVs currently deployed in UK coastal waters. Photo: Hans Hoffmann.
Coastal authorities across Europe have expressed astonishment at the British Government’s decision to withdraw funding for the nation’s Emergency Towing Vessel (ETV) service.
The current charter contract expires in September of next year.
Within hours of the announcement the Royal Navy’s newest submarine, the £1.2bn HMS Astute, ran aground on a clearly charted shingle bank during trials close to Scotland’s Skye Bridge and had to be pulled free by one of the four threatened ETVs, the Anglian Prince.
Britain's ETV vessels are chartered by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency for use in pollution control incidents and for towing vessels which are in difficulty in coastal waters. Anglian Prince, Anglian Princess, Anglian Sovereign and Anglian Monarch are based in strategic locations around the UK, with two covering the south of England at Falmouth in Cornwall and Dover in Kent, and two in Scottish waters, at Stornoway, the Western Isles and Lerwick in the Northern Isles (Shetland and Orkney). The Dover station is funded jointly with French maritime authorities.
The first vessels of the UK's ETV fleet were introduced in 1993 following the recommendations of Lord Donaldson’s report into the MV Braer oil spill of off the coast of Shetland. Klyne Tugs Ltd of Lowestoft took over the ETV contract in 1999, and in February 2001 signed an eight year contract to own and operate a four ETV vessel fleet, which in 2006 was extended by two years, to run until September 2011. Klyne Tugs was taken over in 2007 by the JP Knight Group, Britain’s oldest tug and barge company, becoming JP Knight (Lowestoft) Ltd.
Last week the British Government announced that as part of the Department for Transport’s share of cuts in the Comprehensive Spending Review, the ETV fleet would be no longer be funded by the MCA, saving £32.5m over the Spending Review period. The Department said that ‘state provision of ETVs does not represent a correct use of taxpayers money and that ship salvage should be a commercial matter between a ship's operator and the salvor’.
That view is not shared in many places, including Scotland, where John Laing, transport chairman at Highland Council said, ‘ How ironic it is that only two days after the government announced the end of funding for emergency tugs in the Highlands and Islands that the Stornoway tug is required to rescue the Royal Navy’s newest and largest attack submarine. We have fought long and hard to have a tug service protect our shores and this incident brings into sharp focus the need for the tug at Stornoway. This is exactly the kind of incident that the tug is required for.’
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