Worried about North Korea? This town still has a nuclear bunker from the 1980s hidden in carpark

With tensions escalating between the US and North
Korea, the threat of nuclear war seems more
prevalent than at any time since the 1980s.
And in the centre of one Welsh town there's a nuclear
bunker.
Built in the mid-80s, it lies hidden beneath a town
centre car park; people park on top of it every day,
oblivious to what exists under their feet, WalesOnline
reports.
You would never guess it was there.
When I come to visit, a Ford Fiesta is parked above it.
Access to it is denied, and it is no longer operational.
But it's a legacy of the Cold War, and an underground
reminder of a blot that stained the now disbanded
Carmarthen District Council. It sits redundantly
beneath Carmarthenshire council’s staff car park in
the town's Spilman Street.
A symbol of panic
If Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un ever put down their
sabres and plunge the world into nuclear disaster, this
three-room subterranean cavern would serve no
purpose, other than acting as an hilarious (or not) and
ironic symbol of a time when panic engulfed a town,
and indeed a nation.
Due to an escalation in the Cold War that saw the US
planning to install cruise missile bases in the UK,
Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
encouraged local councils to build nuclear shelters,
with a promise of a grant to cover the majority of the
cost – rumoured to be around £400,000.
For younger generations, it is difficult to imagine the
day in 1986 when around 7,000 people descended on
Carmarthen town centre to form a human chain in
protest at the bunker’s construction.
One protester, a young woman, tried to scale a 12ft
high metal fence which was spiked at the top.
As she did so, a security guard pulled her away and
her little finger, caught on the fence, was ripped off.
One man who had a bird’s eye view of the mayhem
was the mayor of Carmarthen, Alun Lenny.
Working as a journalist for the BBC, Mr Lenny was
holed up in a room at the town’s Ivy Bush Royal
Hotel, which overlooks the car park.
A tumultuous time
“It was a very tense time, politically,” said Mr Lenny.
“There were instruction videos at the time of what to
do in the event of a nuclear war - take off one of your
doors, lean it up against a wall and barricade yourself.
They also told you to stock up on baked beans!
“It was a tumultuous time – farmers were protesting
against EU milk quotas, and it was the height of the
miners’ strike, on top of this issue with the bunker.
“It was a good time to work in news!
“Despite most people being against it, the council
decided to go ahead and build the bunker and it
backfired horribly."
"It, and Carmarthen, became a focus for anti-nuclear
protests. I was here on a bank holiday weekend in
1986 when thousands of people took part in a CND
(Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) protest.
“I was on the top floor of the Ivy Bush with two other
newsmen from the BBC, all taking turns to keep
lookout at what was happening down below.
“It was an amazing scene. Thousands of people
formed a human chain down Spilman Street, down
Castle Hill, along Station Road and up The Parade.
The bunker was surrounded.”
Despite my best efforts, I was not allowed entry into
the bunker on health and safety grounds.
Mr Lenny has had the privilege, and explains that
visions of a highly sophisticated underground abode –
like something from a James Bond movie – are
inaccurate to say the least.
“There are three rooms, a generator, a map on the
wall, and a telephone,” said Mr Lenny. “It looks like an
RAF control room from the Second World War.”
The cost and the controversy associated with the
project meant that the bunker turned into a source of
embarrassment for Carmarthen District Council.
Once the protests were diluted and the construction
was complete, the bunker became something of a
white elephant, one that lay dormant underneath a car
park as the Soviet Union broke up, the Cold War came
to an end, the Berlin Wall came down, and the world
retracted from the ultimate brink.
Tokenism
More recently, the ghastly prospect of a nuclear
fallout has, according to some, reared its head once
more with political tensions becoming more feverish
across the world.
So, is there a chance that a fortunate few could be
spared a painful and radioactive death by heading to
a car park in Carmarthen town centre?
“No,” says Mayor Lenny, abruptly.
“It’s not operational, and I don’t see how it would
have been operational back in the 1980s. It was
tokenism. It was ludicrous.
“If there ever is a nuclear war, that’s it. I don’t see
how jumping into a hole in a Carmarthen car park is
going to save your life.”

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