Future of RAF Coltishall

RAF Coltishall

Speech : 14 June 2005

12.30 pm

Mr. Keith Simpson (Mid-Norfolk) (Con): I welcome this opportunity to debate this important subject, which has an immediate impact on my constituents and those of the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), as well as a broader impact across the whole of Norfolk.

I congratulate the Minister on his new appointment. He has moved from the Principality of Wales to the principality of defence. I wish him well with his new responsibilities.

Norfolk has been living with the prospect of the closure of RAF Coltishall since 1998, when it emerged that it was likely that the Jaguar aircraft deployed there would be withdrawn within a decade. Therefore, the formal announcement in July last year, as part of the defence White Paper, that by December 2006 all RAF operations would cease at Coltishall and that the RAF would have no further use for the base did not come as a complete surprise to me or my constituents.

Nevertheless, there was a lot of local anxiety about the future, as the local catchment area that is affected covers a wide area of north and mid-Norfolk where there are scattered communities and areas of local economic and social deprivation. The closure has an immediate impact on villages within my constituency such as Horstead, Wroxham, Buxton, as well as Coltishall itself. It also has an impact on a town the size of Aylsham, and it has a similar impact in north Norfolk.

On 1 November 2004, an RAF Coltishall task group was established, led by Norfolk county council. Its membership included myself and the hon. Member for North Norfolk, representatives of parish councils, North Norfolk district council and Broadland district council, RAF Coltishall, Defence Estates, Business Link, the East of England Development Agency and others. The short-term issue was to address immediately problems of redundancy and economic loss of income by local communities. The medium-term strategy, as identified by the task group, was to establish whether the Ministry of Defence or any other Department might have a use for the base and to prepare for the eventuality of RAF Coltishall being declared surplus to all Government requirements.

Since 1 November, the task group has met regularly and has taken forward a number of practical issues such as a comprehensive study prepared under the auspices of Norfolk county council and EEDA, which provided factual information about the immediate impact of the closure of both RAF Coltishall and RAF Neatishead. I wish to emphasise that RAF Neatishead is in the constituency of the hon. Member for North Norfolk, and that its closure, along with that of RAF Coltishall, delivers, to a certain extent, a double whammy to the local economy.

Much good work has been done, and I wish to put on record my appreciation of the contributions made by Squadron Leader Paul Robins, the project officer at RAF Coltishall, who has been as open and constructive as possible from the perspective of RAF Coltishall, and Mr. Barry Sygrove, the area manager east of Defence Estates, who also brings a lot of practical experience to the issues that we have been addressing.

There are many specific questions to address, such as environmental degradation of the base, the future of the married quarters, and what residual RAF use might continue after December 2006. The key question for the local community and the task group was whether the Ministry of Defence or any other Department might have a further use for the base. At the first meeting of our task group in November 2004, we were informed that the MOD had yet to declare the base surplus to its requirements, but that a decision on other possible military uses would be made by April 2005. If no MOD requirement were found, other Departments would be consulted through English Partnerships. Only after the exercise carried out within the MOD and other Departments drew a blank would the base be declared surplus to requirements. In November 2004, it was thought that the whole exercise would be completed by April 2005, giving a period of 18 months between potentially being declared surplus and disposal. That is key for consideration of planning uses other than those by a Department. The Minister will appreciate that although the task group has had to conduct a lot of forward thinking and planning on the assumption that the base would be surplus to all Government requirements, the lack of a clear decision has inhibited the work and creates uncertainty in the local communities most affected.

I appreciate that, from March onwards, the expected decision by the MOD was postponed because of the general election. However, I was somewhat disappointed by the reply that I received from the Minister to a letter that I wrote on 23 May seeking clarification about the MOD's possible further requirements for RAF Coltishall. I learned that I had achieved this debate last Wednesday and, lo and behold, on Thursday I received a reply from the Minister. I am sure that hon. Members will see that purely as a coincidence, but who says that parliamentary debate and pressure do not achieve at least some results? He wrote:

"I can confirm that this Department has not yet reached a decision as to whether there is any alternative defence use for the site. Indeed, we intend that the simulator at Coltishall will remain on the site until the Jaguar goes out of service. It is possible that some of the living accommodation may be used after 2006. I understand that in order to progress further you would wish to know the outcome of our studies. We do not expect to complete our investigations before the autumn of 2005."

Even keeping to that decision, the timing will have slipped by six months. Can the Minister say whether autumn means September or December? If it is the back end of December, that means that we have only about one year before most of the RAF functions cease at Coltishall. If the MOD has no further use but other Departments are to be trawled, could that mean that a final Government decision might slip further into 2006? I know that the Minister may not have control over responses from other Departments, but clarification would be welcome.

Such points are not legalistic debating points. They have a real impact on the contingency planning being carried out by the RAF Coltishall task group, which is spending EEDA money and Norfolk county council money, as well as MOD money, and they affect the morale of local communities, which feel that a lot of time has passed without a big decision being made.

The local community overwhelmingly supports the RAF presence at Coltishall. Many people are sad that the RAF is leaving Coltishall and they are aware that that presence goes back to the late 1930s. RAF Coltishall is the last battle of Britain RAF base still in use operationally and there is a lot of local good feeling. I recognise the fact that some local people will welcome the end of flying, but the majority, even those directly affected, are sad to see the RAF going and appreciate the work that it did in maintaining our freedom, not only during the second world war but in the long watch of the cold war. Many RAF personnel have decided that they will live in our community when they leave the services and have married local people. There is a strong link.

As far as I can ascertain from talking to local people, there would be a positive reaction if an alternative MOD requirement were found for the future of RAF Coltishall. A similar thing happened at what had been RAF Swanton Morley in my constituency nearly a decade ago. The RAF had no further use, but the Army found that it had a requirement and moved in an armoured regiment. That has worked well in terms of community relationships and the impact on the local economy. The Minister will not be surprised to hear that, even if local communities cannot agree on possible alternatives, they are certain that they do not want RAF Coltishall to be an asylum centre.

The Minister should be aware that the closure of RAF Coltishall is the equivalent of the loss of a steelworks or a car factory in terms of the impact on the local economy and jobs. A recent provisional report by EEDA and Norfolk county council on the affect on the local economy suggests that it would be in the region of £19 million per annum and 400 jobs. That is a major impact for an area such as mid and north Norfolk. I recognise that the Ministry of Defence is not just a job creator and economic bolster for the area, but the Minister should bear that impact in mind.

The MOD owes the local community of mid and north Norfolk and must get the decision right from the point of view of local people. Also, RAF Coltishall is one of the first two RAF bases flagged up for closure in what I suspect will be a continuing round of closures of other MOD bases rolled out over the next two or three years. Is it not in the MOD's interests to get it right in this case so that, when other bases are closed, Ministers can turn to people worried in other parts of the United Kingdom and say, "Look what happened with RAF Coltishall. We got it right. You can go and talk to the local MPs and representatives and they are relatively happy"? The alternative would not be a good precedent.

Finally, local people are apprehensive that, if the MOD ceases RAF use of Coltishall but there is an administrative hiatus before disposal, the site will deteriorate and the married quarters might be vandalised. Will the Minister assure me that that will not happen and that effective measures will be taken to secure RAF Coltishall against the kind of vandalism that has taken place at other former RAF and Army sites?

12.42 pm

RAF Coltishall

News : 2 August 2006

Keith Simpson calls for "absolute transparency" from Defence Estates with regard to the future use of RAF Coltishall.

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