Arms company drops plan to test bombs at Scottish world heritage site

A British arms company has abandoned plans to detonate fragmentation bombs in the middle of the Flow Country world heritage site, the Guardian can reveal.

The company, Overwatch, asked the Civil Aviation Authority this month for permission to carry out “live fire testing” of anti-personnel bombs dropped by drones on to land owned by the Liberal Democrat peer John Thurso.

The Flow Country became the first peat bog in the world to be granted world heritage site status by Unesco in July, in recognition of its rarity and its importance to conservation and combating the climate crisis.

The bomb tests have now been cancelled after the Guardian told Overwatch that the area earmarked for them included part of the Strathmore peatlands site of special scientific interest, a heavily protected peat bog home to rare and threatened birds, such as dunlin, golden plover and greenshank.

Overwatch’s chief operating officer, Mark Melhorn, said the firm had no idea that the area it planned to use was in the Flow Country world heritage site or included part of the Strathmore peatlands.

Melhorn said Overwatch would immediately cancel its application to the CAA and postpone all further testing of its bombs in the UK.

“We had been put on to the area in question through the third-party provider we are using [and] at no time had it been flagged to us that the area had any protections in place, including when visiting the site for a recce,” he said.

Conservationists said they were shocked and alarmed by the application. NatureScot, a government agency, said it was surprised Overwatch had not realised the area was so heavily protected.

A spokesperson for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said: “The withdrawn application to the CAA is certainly unusual and we would have had concerns with it regarding the potential impacts on designated sites at the location.”

The CAA application was submitted by OW Energetics, a subsidiary of Overwerx Ltd, an arms company that specialises in making anti-personnel bombs and military drones.

Overwerx is owned by a former army officer, Drew Michael, who has been the subject of several MailOnline and Sun articles after he began dating the model Louise Redknapp, the ex-wife of the former footballer Jamie Redknapp.

Melhorn confirmed that Overwatch had been planning to test a fragmentation bomb, which the company’s marketing publicity says has “exceptional kinetic effect for size and mass”; it weighs as little as 1.5kg.

Overwatch also sells a small drone that can hover over its target, a strategy known as “static loiter”.

It had asked the CAA for approval to fly the drone and drop its bombs over a 2km-diameter safety zone on the Thurso family’s estate near Loch More, east of Altnabreac railway station.

The firm summarised its plans as “live fire testing of a one-way system UAV equipped with an anti-personnel warhead targeting a designated area at the Glengolly location within the Ulbster estate”.

It chose Caithness on the advice of its test-firing contractor after the Ministry of Defence refused to give it permission to test its devices at the Salisbury Plain live firing range in Wiltshire because it was not an official MoD test.

Lord Thurso said he was unaware that Overwatch had planned to use drones, did not know that fragmentation bombs were involved, and did not know that the CAA application included part of the Strathmore peatlands.

He said a deep quarry he owns near the peatlands had been used for “all sorts” of military and munitions testing for 20 years without incident.

Thurso said the Ukraine war had greatly increased demand and he assumed Overwatch may have planned to use the quarry to detonate its device by flying the drone over the peatlands.

He said “there is absolutely no way” he would have approved the use of drones or explosives over Strathmore. “Certainly we would never give permission for people to go dropping bombs in the blanket bog,” he said.

A NatureScot spokesperson said: “We are surprised the provider had not engaged with us to determine any environmental considerations including an assessment of the impact on designated nature sites, but we are relieved to hear that the live fire testing application has been cancelled.

“It was only last month that the Flow Country was awarded world heritage site status, so it is understandable that the applicant may not have been aware of this recent honour. However, the Strathmore peatlands site of special scientific interest has been designated since 1992.”