Compensation totalling more than £35 million has been paid to workers poisoned by asbestos at Devonport Dockyard in Plymouth, the Ministry of Defence has revealed.
The city has one of the highest rates of asbestos-related illness with the material being used widely both on ships and in buildings at the Royal Navy yard.
A lack of proper health and safety precautions meant hundreds of worker inhaled tiny asbestos fibres resulting in a range of lung diseases from pleural plaques to the fatal cancer mesothelioma.