Derry was a chemical defence storage site and noted as a chemical weapons site: MoD

However, following a Freedom of Information (FOI) request lodged by this newspaper the MoD’s Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) has advised it does know the nature of the site in question.

Last month this paper revealed how three sites in the North - in Derry, Clady and Omagh - were formerly used to store poisonous agents and as such were the subject to ‘Project Cleansweep’, which was set up by the MoD in 2007.

Now the MoD has advised that the site in Derry was actually a chemical weapons storage site, while the sites in Clady and Omagh have been described as ‘primary ports’.

In a statement the British military revealed: “I can confirm that Londonderry/Derry was a chemical defence storage site and is noted as a chemical weapons site. Clady and Omagh were both primary ports.”

Despite this revelation the MoD, astonishingly, doesn’t know where the site is.

“The exact location of chemical weapons storage within the sites in Derry, Clady and Omagh is not held by the MoD,” the statement claimed.

Last month, however, this paper was able to establish that neither Fort George, Ebrington, Shackleton or the U.S. Naval Communication Station at Clooney were on the original longlist of chemical depots reviewed under Project Cleansweep.

The final report of the MoD survey has still not been published.