Halton to Close

[bootscooter]

I was staying at Halton recently, and the welcome blurb in the key envelope stated that the land was lent initially to the Army by the Rothchilds, then was all subsequently bought by the RAF...

 

[gaznav]

I was staying at Halton recently, and the welcome blurb in the key envelope stated that the land was lent initially to the Army by the Rothchilds, then was all subsequently bought by the RAF...

Yup, the War Dept bought it from the Rothschilds for £112,000 freehold in 1918/19.

If I was a betting man, then recruit training will move to Cranditz inside the next 10 years (but probably not inside 5 years). RAF Halton will not close as it takes the strain for High Wycombe which was never ever big enough (and I hear that they are looking at clawing some staff back from the great 'rustication' folly of 2011).

The main recruit trg site is listed and so won't be up for demolishon like the old hospital site. Therefore, won't attract the same attention from property builders. The local council has overdeveloped Aylesbury with house building and the schools are well over capacity - therefore, it will be at least 10 years before they could cope with a big build on the rest of the Halton site. Going back to Cranwell it's the same deal - the local council needs to bid, fund, build schools and welfare facilities on top of the MoD finding the cash for new SLA and SFA builds for the staff before they've even built a new parade square and recruit accomodation.

This is one of those 'it looks simple on paper' projects that turns into a collosal amount of money...

In my humble opinion of course!