ALMOST 50 people have been arrested following one of the biggest anti-nuclear weapons protests outside Faslane naval base in recent years.

Campaigners chained themselves to each other and blocked the entrance of the base in Argyll and Bute, which is the home of the UK's nuclear submarines.

Police Scotland arrested 32 women and 15 men, mostly for offences relating to breach of the peace and resisting arrest.

The Scrap Trident coalition, which was behind the protest, said it wanted Scotland to be allowed to "lead the way to a world free of nuclear weapons".

More than 100 of its supporters demonstrated outside the base.

Around 20 people, in pairs or in groups of three, chained their arms together inside sections of drain pipes and other plastic tubing and lay down on the road in front of the north gate at Faslane, while eight other people did the same at the south gate during the protest yesterday.

Officers used cutting equipment to separate them.

It follows a weekend of action calling on the UK Government to scrap Trident and use its budget to fund welfare, education and health. Organisers said disability rights campaigners, students, pensioners, trade unionists and environmentalists took part in the protest.

Nicole MacLean, a student from Falkirk, chained herself to Zach Hampstead, 24.

She said: "We want to set a precedent for other countries.

"I think it sends a positive message to the world to get rid of nuclear weapons."

Leonna O'Neill, 27, has lived in the Faslane peace camp for the last two-and-a-half years and helped organise the blockade.

She said: "We show people they can actually affect the situation and put their bodies in the way of these weapons."

Green MSP Patrick Harvie was also at the protest. He said: "If Scotland decides next year to take control of its own defence and foreign affairs policy, we will be able at last to consign Trident to history and make Scotland a force for peace in the world."

l Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, has all but admitted the UK Government does have a contingency plan for Britain's nuclear deterrent should Scots vote for independence.

Ministers have insisted no plan is needed because the Coalition does not believe Scotland will leave the United Kingdom.

However, Mr Hammond effectively admitted to a Trident contingency plan should Scots vote yes. The SNP welcomed what it described as a U-turn.