You could miss it, quite easily. You need to know in advance that the small, narrow strip of land which houses the last remaining Scottish Peace Camp is just on your right as you approach the Clyde Submarine Base at Faslane. The camp occupies a narrow strip of verge, partially obscured by some maturing trees. One of them is a Cherry, planted in 1985 by two survivors of Hiroshima who came to pay their respects. Underneath lie half a dozen brightly painted caravans and a couple of informal ''benders'' to house the visitors which swell the permanent population at times when supporters join their protests at the presence of that base and its neighbour Coulport on Loch Long, joint homes of the massive Trident nuclear submarine programme.

A pathway of paving stones play host to a variety of impromptu artworks; the windows of the vans display the defiant yellow of freshly cut daffodils.

It is a very small space. A small defiant roadside presence created 15 years ago with the dual blessing of Dumbarton District Council and Strathclyde region, under whose benign eye successive peace campers were able to set up formal water, sewerage, and telephone services.

Stored on site are some kayaks and dinghies, aboard which the campers and their supporters have greeted the arrival of new nuclear presences on the Clyde, or attempted blockades of the route through the Rhu narrows. Along the road, above the North Gate, the hillside boasts a CND symbol crafted from flowers. Truly these campers are seditious, dangerous people. Or so we must suppose now that their new landlords, Argyll and Bute Council, have decided behind closed doors that they must be evicted. They are, it seems, a bit of an eyesore. A public affront to the gentility of neighbouring Helensburgh.

And what a strange notion this conjures up of life's aesthetic niceties. Let me take you further along the same roadside where Faslane dominates the approach to what was once the picturesque and unspoilt village of Garelochhead. The base's 103-plus hectares are separated from the public roadway by more than two miles of chainlink fencing topped by razor wire. Immediately behind the perimeter lie more coils of barbed wire rolls.Above them, the infra-red cameras. Beyond them constant warnings to keep out lest you fall foul of military police dog patrols.

The road you are travelling once had three lanes. The Ministry of Defence wanted further to encroach on the public highway. Strathclyde region said no. The MoD invoked their all-purpose veto. There are now just two lanes and a steeply rising verge to the forbidding fence. It gets worse the nearer you get to Garelochhead. The hundreds of millions of pounds overspent on the Trident programme have still, apparently, not been sufficient to render the massive submarine lifting shed operational. A problem of hydraulics, it appears. But the shed is still with us. A grey monstrosity rising hundreds of feet into the spring air. For a remarkable stretch it completely blocks out your view of the Gareloch. It is not, apparently, an eyesore. Not compared with a small painted caravan.

The peace camp population is now small. Fewer than 10 permanent residents, though 10 times that number came to protest at the council's decision not to give them a public hearing. The council has made much of the fact that the peace camp personnel are not those who set up shop in 1982 in protest at the Polaris programme. Not unreasonably the protesters riposte that the personnel at Faslane and Coulport also do fixed terms of duty. When one tranche leaves, it is rarely suggested that we disband the Navy. But let us move on round the Rosneath Peninsula to Coulport. You cannot mistake the route, for along the lochside, nestling jarringly among the newly budded growth, are stark black signs advising you that the hillside is MoD property. Keep out. Don't even think of walking your dog up the hillside where massive watchtowers now reign and yet more stark fencing marches across the moorland.

Don't seek succour from the Lochside view as you turn into the home straight. At the moment the massive black hulk of the latest Trident is exercising in the loch, its awesome nuclear missile power only too credible from the alarming scale of its jet black body hull. But not, apparently, representing visual intrusion. Not compared with a 12-year-old cherry tree.

Coulport itself takes up some 742 hectares. The two bases plus the weapons cache at Glen Douglas employ some 7000 people. You can have two views of this. You can say, in truth, that the MoD has offered local employment opportunities, not least when Coulport was being massively extended. And it did. Many local businesses survived the recession on the back of MoD contracts. Or you could weep at the impact of such a negative presence on an area whose identity and ethos has been all but sacrificed to the influx of a transient population and, so far as many residents are concerned, an alien ideology.

It is a strange philosophy which can conclude that fewer than a dozen caravanners wishing to bear semi-permanent witness against the immorality of nuclear warfare somehow pose a greater threat to local humanity than a fleet of submarines which could effortlessly end civilisation globally.

Some little time ago, when the sheer scale of the environmental vandalism posed by the extended bases was beginning to become apparent, the MoD sought to allay local fears. They published a map purporting to describe the likely path of radiation pollution in the event of a nuclear accident. This map is now something of a collector's item. It is one of the few pieces of scientific research which concludes that radiation is sufficiently well trained to follow a precise flight path determined by land ownership. According to this missive, if your garden backs on the MoD property, you need have nothing to fear. The fallout, trained by experts, will stop at your hedge.

You can believe that, or you can ponder the freshly minted message at the roadside beside the peace camp. Evict Trident, not the peace camp, it suggests. Fine with me.