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Lyneham
up in air
Swindon Advertiser
22nd November 2005
www.thisiswiltshire.co.uk
The Government may have given
a hint to the future of Wiltshire's RAF station. In
July 2003, the Ministry of Defence slated RAF Lyneham for
closure in 2012, which would see its familiar fleet of Hercules
transport planes move to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.
But Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram said that the MoD is
looking at a number of options regarding the base's closure.
He said: "We must balance what is right for defence."
" A decision might develop that it is right for the
RAF, but the Army might come up with a different solution
so we must then consider which provides the best efficiency
gain and the best delivery of what we seek."
He added that the decision was still a long way off and
that the government was not at a stage to say what was happening.
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Turning the base into a vast housing estate or a regional airport
have already been discounted. Mr Ingram spoke in the House of Commons
last week about the decision to locate the latest generation of
fighter aircraft in his home country of Scotland thus securing thousands
of jobs in the region. The Joint Combat Aircraft and new Nimrod
MRA4 will be located in Morayshire at RAF Lossiemouth and Kinloss.
The Armed Forces Minister then spoke about RAF Lyneham "We
have decided to move the aircraft that were at Lyneham to Brize
Norton, we have always said that Lyneham could have alternative
defence uses. The hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray), who
represents the area, is very active in pursuing this. I pay him
that compliment although he was pretty condemnatory of me in business
questions. Lyneham need not be a solely RAF solution—there
could be an Army interest in the site. The same could apply to Leeming.
As we rationalise the estate, we do not dispose of it willy-nilly
if it may have another defence use. It would be wrong to walk away
from valuable real estate in important parts of the country. There
has been considerable investment in all that infrastructure, some
of which needs significant upgrading none the less. We do not need
as many as 50 airfields in terms of what we now seek to do."
Source: www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk
This seems to be a big turn from original statements from within
the MoD, they were adamant that the base was to close by 2012. Will
we see the role of Lyneham change now?
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