Site Records

Site Name: Stonehaven - Kindardine and Deeside District Council Emergency Centre

RSG site visit 12th October 2001

The Kindardine and Deeside District Council Emergency Centre was built under a new extension to the council office at 'Viewmount' in 1988. The bunker in Arduthie Road also acted as the Grampian Council Standby Emergency Centre. The bunker was taken out of use about 1992 and is now largely empty. It is occasionally used for meetings when offices above are occupied. It lies wholly under the car park and is accessed from a blast door at the bottom of a steep bank alongside the car park.

Once inside the entrance steel blast door there is a second blast door (the two forming an airlock) into the decontamination room which still retains a shower and a small drainage grille in the floor. In one side wall there is a third blast door into the plant room where there are two Perkins standby generators, ventilation plant, control equipment, switchgear and five Jerry cans. Both generators and the ventilation plant are in working order, the larger of the two feeds the offices above and the smaller one fed the bunker.

Back in the decontamination room a forth blast door at the far end leads into a short corridor to the left. On the right hand side of the corridor the first room is the Tank Room followed by the Unisex Toilet consisting of two cubicles, two wash basins and a shower. On the opposite side of the corridor is a room with a 1:50,000 map of Aberdeenshire on the wall. There are two smaller maps and an outline of the Aberdeen ROC Group showing posts and clusters with roads and rivers marked. This was probably the Scientific Advisors Room.

At the end of the corridor a door opens into the long, narrow control room which has tables and chairs and a UKWMO map of the UK showing Sectors, Groups and ROC Posts (in clusters). All other rooms are accessed from the control room. Inside the door, the first room on the left (which also interconnects with the Scientific Advisors Room) is probably the Communications Room. It contains a TSX50 ECN unit (not in a Faraday Cage and not working), an AD200 FAX machine, a photo copier a 1970's teleprinter, two 1960's Pye tranceivers and desks and filing cabinets. There is also a box of Plessey PDRM82 portable dose rate meters and various Civil Protection magazines.

The next room on the left hand side of the control room (which also connects with the Communications Room) has a 1:50,000 map of Aberdeenshire on the wall and two Pye radio telephone controllers. The final room on the left hand side (which also connects directly with its adjacent room) has another 1:50,000 map of Aberdeenshire, two desks and chairs and an incident info log on the wall. The Room is 'L' shaped and in the short arm of the 'L' is a small blast door in the wall opening on to a ladder up to an emergency escape shaft in the car park. At the back of the control room is the Dormitory with 15 triple bunks (erected) and 15 small lockers. The bunks are now used as shelves for storage. At the opposite end of the control room is the small kitchen with a Tricity cooker, a stainless steel sing in a kitchen unit with cupboards and a preparation surface, a water heater and 8 wall cupboards. The bunker is dry and it good condoning throughout. It was opened to the public during the 'Open House' weekend in 2001 and proved a very popular attraction.

Those taking part in the visit were Nick Catford, Robin Ware, Keith Ward and Robin Cherry, Ward & Caroline Westwater.

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