A by-pass for Watlington! Comes around every seven years. The land that could take it is all owned by one family as far as I know ...

That is most interesting, as I was peripheral to measurements made of an in service aircraft recently, apparently to ensure an appropriately scaled and detailed centrifuge could be manufactured.

I drove back from Cranwell some 17 years ago + with a fellow officer, post CRM course and to while away the journey we played a version of Eye Spy. Well actually, 'can you name the number of operational RAF airfield closed since we joined'. We gave up at 50!

RAF Spitalgate
 

I worked with a branch officer about 20 years ago who told me that his first posting was PWoG Barracks when it was RAF Spitalgate the infamous home of WRAF basic trg. He was a Supplier and one of 5 males on the camp amongst approx 500 women.

Whilst it may not be pc anymore he told me stories of never doing any washing, ironing and when it came to the Thursday night NAAFI bop, he and his other lucky 4 would literally 'choose; for the night!

Been there in the last few years and it being run (down) by the RLC it is not a great state.

I had not long been in RLC(V) and we moved from a hutted camp at Kempston, near Bedford to Grantham. The Commandant of the time was not (I discovered later) known for his sense of humour. At the welcome drinks he asked me if I had been to the place before. "Yes, sir, over the wire on a Saturday night when I was a cadet down the road" was not well received.

New DIO procurement plan just released.

Additional closures: Halton, Chivenor and a raft of Army barracks.

Wonder just what they will do with that lovely old OM building at Halton?

And as for heaven in Devon...

Do you have a link? Many of the army barracks might well be ex-RAF airfields.

And to think that amongst all the fine stations that have been closed Brize Norton is still open......

Ken Scott,

Here you go.

https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...Plan_FINAL.pdf

Don't think that the Army barracks are ex RAF, Didcot, Woolwich, Hounslow etc.

To go:

Review of London Assets
•
Chilwell Station, Nottingham
•
RAF Halton and Henlow
•
Invicta Barracks, Maidstone
•
Parsons / Venning Barracks, Telford
•
RMB Chivenor
•
Vauxhall Barracks, Didcot
•
Azimghur Barracks, Colerne
•
Prince William of Gloucester barracks, Grantham

Took a bit of digging before I found the list on P32, along with the quote:

Which I read as 'there's nothing not being used but we're going to get rid of a third of the estate anyway'.

Re Halton House OM. Have they come to some arrangement with the Rothschilds?
I always understood that under the terms of the gifting of Halton by the Rothschilds, the house and estate had to be returned to the family in the same state that they were originally, and when looked at a few years ago the cost of returning the house alone was several 10s of £millions.

Will that include Halton House then?

I may be reading the document wrongly, but it seems to be a procurement plan for contractors to look at redeploying resources: "these projects are known as Estate Optimisation projects and will be advertised in the OJEU [Official Journal of the
European Union]." As Halton and Henlow are on the same line in the list, might it be a question of how to accommodate the remaining units/personnel from Henlow at Halton? That would get perhaps avoid the Rothschild agreement/Crichel Down Rules.

Page 43 shows that a contract for "Site Appraisals for RAF Halton and RAF Henlow" has been awarded, with a value of £5,000, for completion by the end of May 2017 - that appraisal will presumably inform the next stage.

Ken Scott

That sounds crazy - the estate is fully used but we will reduce it by another 30% anyway and there will be a reprovision requirement....................

I read that as close 30% and then rebuild it somewhere else...............

is that correct ??

Arc

What's the old saying......... One bomb and its gone,

Arclite01:

In other words, close one third of the estate & squeeze all the units into the other 2 thirds.

With respect to airfields there are already very few places one can fly to to conduct training. Fortunately the natives around the secret Oxfordshire airbase are very amenable to aircraft flying circuits, especially late at night for NVG training, so I'm told.

Only if they refurbish the one third first, new accomodation, new pool, resurface the roads etc, only then can they close it.

VX - I think we pressed "post" at the same time

With Halton being such a sprawling camp, I can easily imagine Halton House and its immediate grounds being retained as a RAF enclave to make satisfying the terms of any agreement with the Rothschild family a lot easier and cheaper. It would make a good replacement for Amport House, perhaps?

That's an utter myth. On Alfred de Rothschild’s death in January 1918, his nephew Lionel inherited Halton House and it’s lands. The Air Board were keen to purchase the estate as an officer cadet college for the nacent Royal Air Force which had been formed on 1 April from an amalgamation of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. Fortunately, Lionel was a willing seller, as the house was the distasteful equivalent of 'Beckingham Palace' in the 1900s and the estate including Halton House was purchased by the War Office in 1919 for £112,000 FREEHOLD. The was about a quarter of the probate value of the estate; clearly a bargain for the War Office (now MOD).

As for Halton, some bright spark wants to move recruit training to Cranwell - more eggs in one basket! However, they will need to build a new parade ground, accomodation, classrooms, SLA, SFA, Messes, schools, etc... There will be a HUGE cost to this and also the local Authorities in Bucks and Lincs will need to be consulted for such a big move. I would still expect to see Halton by 2025 as if it does go ahead (subject to finding massive sums of money we don't have) then all this will have to be built and there will need to be an overlap in recruit training. Also, there are some 20-odd lodger units at Halton to find homes for. So realistically we are at least 5 years away and probably closer to 10 from the site being cleared. Then there are the other plans at Cranwell to sort out - running legacy flying training and MFTS at the same time, building the new RAFCAM, resurfacing the runway and sorting out the very tired infrastructure on the camp (which was looking very run down last time I looked). Quite where the DIO are going to get this cash is quite beyond me - they can't even maintain what they have now!!!

My guess is that parts of Halton will be sold and some will stay as it becomes an overflow for HQ Air (which is hugely overcrowded). Oh, and the recruit training area is Grade II listed as is the OM - so their use is limited unlike the old hospital site that was bulldozed and the land sold off to build houses ~10 years ago.

LJ