tmmorris - just felt I had to pull you up on one thing:
.....selling off places like Kirknewton and Newton which are only used by ATC cadets....
- as I am one of the many volunteers that make up the staff at Kirknewton, I can assure you that it is alive and well and still part of Defence Estates!
What I would agree with is that the costs of maintaining any defence facility are weighed against:
- Strategic importance
- Criticality of location
- Alternative facilities
- Optimisation of revenue sources without jeapordising primary operations
- etc
The bottom line is that we are encouraged to cooperate with other service users (including letting the Army drive 8 tonners across wet ground, ripping up the glider landing areas and destroying the peritracks
, letting the local TA Signals Sqn have a 48 hr exercise on the airfield so that they can nick our telephone lines and check all personnel and vehicles entering and leaving the school, letting TA units have their basic training weekends on unused parts of the airfield so that they can be trained in the art of disguising oneself as a cabbage and making a noise that sounds like a castrated cat imitating an owl
). There is a fixed wing flying club with on-site hangarage, helicopters and microlights use the place as a training area during the week when we're not around with the gliders. An HGV training organisation use the airfield for driver training and testing during the week. We also host charity events such as a Ladies Driving Challenge and a stage of a 4WD off-road LandRover driving rally.
So, just like any commercial business, we have to diversify to survive.
[edited to insert some things I omitted to mention that we do]