UPDATED 16:57*
BOMB disposal teams were due to blow up a piece of wartime munition off the Island this morning (Friday) after it was dredged-up in Portsmouth Harbour.


The device was unearthed outside shipping lanes and will not affect ferry traffic according to coastguards.

* A Royal Navy spokesman said the device was not a mine, as initially believed.

The spokesman said: "The British-made Armstrong Whitworth munition was found at 2am in the excavator head of a barge dredging the harbour – part of a raft of infrastructure upgrades taking place in readiness for the arrival of the Royal Navy’s new 65,000-tonne aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth. 

"It is not known how the device could have ended up at the bottom of the Solent.

"Divers of the Royal Navy’s Southern Diving Unit were called to the scene, lowered the device to the seabed and carried out a controlled explosion at around 8.30am."