The Wreck to Reef (W2R) project has been campaigning for the purchase of a decommissioned warship to be sunk as an artificial reef and diving attraction.
Its preferred site would have been Balaclava Bay, followed by Church Ope Cove. Both of these will not be possible, however, because they lie too close to a Royal Navy acoustic testing area for minesweepers.
“Apparently it’s the only site in the country and the MoD objected because they said compressor equipment on the diving boats would interfere with range operations,” Neville Copperthwaite, W2R project co-ordinator, told local press.
Instead, following consultation with the Crown Estate, W2R has identified a workable site in Ringstead Bay, further east but still accessible by Portland boats. It would be a little less sheltered and deeper than that in Balaclava Bay.
The diving community is, said Copperthwaite, “happy” about the proposed new site, as it lies “just outside the anchorage area of Weymouth Bay” and is 22m deep rather than the 16m of Balaclava Bay. The wreck of HMS Scylla, a decommissioned frigate sunk off Plymouth in 2004 as the UK’s first artificial reef, sits in 24m.
The W2R project remains in its early stages, with permissions still required from various agencies including the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, Southern Sea Fisheries and English Nature. There is still a ship to obtain, and major funding to secure.
Initiatives have included an approach to the South West Regional Development Agency, which played a big role in funding the Scylla project. Weymouth and Portland Borough Council has given “support and enthusiasm”, says W2R.
Portland and Weymouth diving businesses, for which a new artificial reef would provide a welcome boost in sport diving visitors, have contributed a reported £20,000 so far to campaign costs.
They have also provided boats free to take volunteer divers out to Ringstead Bay to survey the topography, flora and fauna of the proposed wreck site. W2R is working with the University of Southampton, a “world leader in artificial reef research”, on its environmental impact study.
Project website – www.wrecktoreef.co.uk
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