Unfortunately, UK LARS used to be a joined up system but now there are some large gaps in radar cover.
Yes, I am afraid I remember those days.
On the other hand down south the expansion of Farnborough is welcome, albeit I notice more often than not these days they are unable to offer a service due to staff shortages.
I would like to see more facilities "encouraged" to provide a LARS service as the military gradually fall away. For example Bournemouth has done so for many years, and very effective it is to.
I am particularly unhappy that NATS are able to charge so much for a radar feed. I was reliably told that the current cost of a feed is in excess of £100K pa with other intiial set up costs. This means that facilities that would be willing, able and qualified to provide a service either dont or must fund the cost of their own head rather than use those funds to provide the service.
For example Southend pays for their own radar head, whereas they could take a feed from NATS that would provide better cover than. The same is true of Manston where I think they are still using a second hand head that is forever going tec. It is nonesense; NATS should be compelled by the CAA to make this data available to qulaified and willing service providers.
Take a few moments to visit the tower at Calais and see how well this can work. The ATCO takes a feed from Lille and although he is not qualified to provide an approach service (which is handled by Lille) he can see all the traffic in the vicinity.