Mail on Sunday 25 Nov 01, page 7:-
RAF's Three Largest Bases Face the Axe - - Bob Graham "defence correspondent".
"The RAF's three largest airbases - including two at the centre of the war against terrorism - face the threat of closure in a major cost-cutting exercise ordered by the Treasury, the Mail on Sunday can reveal.
RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire, RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, and RAF St Mawgan in Cornwall have been put on notice by the government.
A "Strategy Review" of the three bases, which together employ nearly 6,500 Air Force personnel and more than 1,500 civilians, has been ordered by the Ministry of Defence.
A senior Defence source said: "The purpose is to scale down the number of air bases throughout the country and, effectively, find ways of closing the largest and most costly. Part of the thinking inevitably will be the amount of money that can be raised for the Treasury by selling the land for such things as housing. The sale of bases in places such as Oxfordshire and Wiltshire will clearly raise a lot of cash".
The review, which begins in a few weeks, will be led by Air Marshal Sir Anthony Bagnall, Commander in Chief of RAF Strike Command, based at High Wycombe. In turn, he and his team will report to Air Chief Marshal Sir Peter Squire, Chief of the Air Staff at the MoD. Finally it is due to be presented to the Treasury next summer.
Shadow Defence Minister James Gray, whose constituency of North Wiltshire covers Lyneham, has started a local campaign to save the base, considered the busiest of the the RAF's 30 throughout Britain.
He said: "Although this very real threat will have a serious impact upon the people who live in the area, it also has a major impact on the future role of the RAF worldwide. We need to look at the military and local implications of what will be considered. There are hundreds od people employed at the base and hundreds of families who could be affected."
In a latter to Mr Gray this week, Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram said the review "will examine the the most cost-effective location for the Air Transport fleet". He added: "This study is part of the MOD's planning process and I must emphasise that no decision about the future roles of stations has yet been made".
Brize Norton is home to the VC10 passenger fleet - including the mid-air fuel tankers deployed in Afghanistan - and is used by the Royal Family, the Prime Minister and other dignitaries. Tr-Star passenger aircraft also fly from the base, taking squadies to Cyprus and the Falkland Islands. It has 3,113 RAF personnel and more than 600 civilans attached to three squadrons.
All the RAF's Hercules planes operate from Lyneham and have been used to carry vast amounts of cargo to forces in the Middle East. The 2,469 RAF personnel are attached to four squadrons. There are also 750 civilians at the base.
St Mawgan has long been associated with Nimrod anti-submarine aircraft and with air-sea rescue services in the South West, and has one of the longest runways in Europe. There are 750 RAF personnel and around 240 civilians at the Cornish base.
"There are several other bases in the UK which could comfortably accommodate all of them without any problem at all", said a senior MoD source. "We realise that this would be an immense blow to the prestige of the RAF, but the hard fact of life today is that the Treasury has discovered that lots of money can be made by disposing of surplus bases."
