RAF Station for sale
 

Just heard on the radio that RAF Neatishead is up for sale.
Anyone going to bid for an officers mess,and a squash court? and maybe some sort of Radar?
Regards, Den.

A radar museum - Index Page.

E-Bay seems a strange way to dispose of real estate (Former airbase RAF Neatishead 25.5 acres site (Freehold) | eBay).

I love that one of the suggested potential uses is "Mushroom & Worm Farm operations". We used to station mushrooms there.

Courtney:D:D

I believe I was one of the mushrooms to which you refer Sir! But at Boulmer and Portreath rather than Neatishead.;)

FB:)

This is Neatishead, what kind of sevice do you require?
"I would like your very best service please old chap".

Seriously, enjoyed some great work with all those guys, maybe was the best in the 80's. Thanks for all the help!

OAP

No photos of the inside of the bunker? I wonder what state it's in? That R3 is one of only 2 that we had with EMP proofing (the other was Ash, which we also disposed of), see here:

RAF Ash Now.

I thought £2.5M was a pretty good price (then I remembered the traffic jams in Roy's Town!).

I never understood why they sold it - in my last job secure server storage was a real problem for the Services, but I doubt the MOD would risk buying it back - I can imagine the headlines.

STH

Courtney

Most of the site was sold off in the mid 2000's, inculding the R3 and the R12. The bits of land with T84, R30 (Museum), Supply and the old Passive Detection High Speed Aerial R15 buildings (plus Links towers) were kept by the MoD and in the case of the latter two are still owned and used by the MoD. The Museum have just taken ownership of the R30 (and I hope the T84 as well). The R3 is most likely full of water now. The price they are asking is almost double the cost that it was sold for. (At least they didn't sell it for a quid like they did at Trimingham and then pay a wad to buy it back again).

It was never the same when they got rid of the plastic/glass boards with pretty girls sat writing backwards - some of the views were quite magnificent! :D

Any mention of Neatishead always brings to mind the fatal fire there in 1966, which resulted in the airman who started the fire being jailed for seven years.

One of the points raised in the enquiry was that although civilian fire services had to attend to back up the RAF team, they had not been given prior access to the site for inspection purposes because of security reasons and were therefore unfamiliar with the layout, a contributory factor in the deaths of three firemen. I remember this well, as when I was fire officer at Kai Tak I was also responsible for inspections at the radar installation at nearby Tai Mo Shan. The then CO resolutely refused to get me clearance to enter and carry out a fire inspection and so I just had to sign it off without actually setting a foot inside. Fortunately there was never a fire there.

R.A.F., NEATISHEAD (RADAR STATION FIRE) (Hansard, 8 August 1966)

The last time they tried to sell RAF Stations they found out they didn't own them!

Mainjafad, interesting. Thank you.

Whopity, that sounds good. Pray tell. I don't recall.

I think that was Wittering. The land is part of the Burgley Estate and Lady Victoria use to charge a pepper corn rent.