It's quite simple, one of the two bases had to go
I beg to differ. True, Lyneham has the shorter runways (but the big jets could and did land there) but they were big enough for the C130. The original basing study had to choose between Lyneham, Brize Norton & St Mawgan and the latter was closed; there was no need to close a second airfield. 'Closing' (it's not even going to close now) Lyneham & moving the C130s to Brize has cost £190 million (& some more) with the expectation of makings savings sometime in the future. We are short of money now, it was a very dim decision to spend alot of money in the present hoping to save a bit in the furure.
We have lost a fine airfield with a supportive local population where you could fly 500ft circuits without them complaining (well, not much anyway). Brize aircraft would come to Lyneham to fly circuits at weekends because they couldn't at home.