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Apparently RAF Scampton, home of the Dambusters, has been selected for use as a refugee detention centre, despite having a £300 million development plan in place.
A lot of people are very upset about this.
Is this intended to stir up more hatred and divide?
Seems sensible to me. Relocate asylum seekers to Lincolnshire so they have a look around and think "who on earth would want to live here in the UK" and then be queuing for any small boat back to France.
Not sure but they’ve upset the Daily Mail, so that works for me
“ Historians and locals blast
'insane' Home Office bid to use
RAF Scampton 'for 1,500 asylum seekers”
Why is "The former home of the Dambusters" relevant to this? It's a large place with a bunch of housing on it. If it is not being used, it makes sense to use it and the same could be said for almost any former MoD place that is no longer home to a dwindling part of the military. Shit, RAF Woodbridge and Ben****ers were empty for years until they started changing Ben****ers into an industrial park and 16AA Bde moved to Woodbridge.
Why is “The former home of the Dambusters” relevant to this?
Because Daily Mail readers need to be furious.
I suspect that if you could ask the original members of 617 Squadron if they supported providing refuge and safety to refuges, they would strongly support it.
It's just an old airbase, they close all the time, history is all good and well, but it sounds more NIMBY to me, you have a large area that already has infrastructure and old airfields do tend to be extremely expensive to redevelop anyway, especially ones over 100 years old, so that £300 million development plan is probably just a shiny brochure approach to it rather than a full assessment.
Why is “The former home of the Dambusters” relevant to this?
Because there was a £300 million scheme in place to redevelop the site, including preserve some of the history, and now, it's claimed, this is in doubt.
It's triggering responses from both sides, not just gammons. Al Murray, who can hardly be called right wing, is very vocal in his opposition.
It’s a large place with a bunch of housing on it.
Don't know if you've ever spent any time on military bases, or airbases in particular but unless they're being used for that purpose (or something very similar) they are god-awful places to be. Airbases tend to be in flat, windy featureless places away from everything else all of which are tremendous pluses when it's an airbase, shocking bad otherwise, especially if you want to house people on them.
I know married quarters are often on or adjacent to them, but the support functions around them hat were run by the military that made living essentially in the middle of a field - the social life, shopping, things for kids to do, schools and health clinics all disappear when they leave, so all of those things suddenly become a drive or bus ride away, and for people on the margins who're not allowed to work, the nearest town may as well be on the moon.
Housing refugees should be done in towns and cities where they can find a social life, settle and integrate, not abandoned airbases.
I seem to recall that there's a huge shortage of farm labour in Lincolnshire. Could be a solution, eventually.
I suspect that if you could ask the original members of 617 Squadron if they supported providing refuge and safety to refuges, they would strongly support it.
🤔
TBH, the sooner we stop harking back to the f_ing Dambusters and WW2 in general the better.
There's monument on top of a hill that I regularly cycle to that commemorates the Crimean War. There's nothing wrong with memorialising the past.
They'll only disappear if the government don't put the infrastructure in, as it'll be a self sustaining area, they'll require medical and dental in situ, they'll just reopen the old HIVE, i believe Scampton is all but closed anyway, everything being managed from Waddington a few miles away.
As for 617, they're based at Marham now, so they'll have all the history over there, and that place is even worse than Scampton to live near!
But what about Gibson's dog's grave?
There’s monument on top of a hill that I regularly cycle to that commemorates the Crimean War. There’s nothing wrong with memorialising the past.
That was a slightly selective quote of mine you did there. As I went on to say, I have no problem with memorialising/honouring the fallen from past wars, but I do have a problem with the glorification of war.
The Dambusters did an undoubtedly difficult, brave thing, but it was still a horrible thing that caused 53 deaths in the air and 1300 (according to the quick Google search I just did) deaths on the ground. However, the memorialization of it tends to concentrate on the gloriousness of the act, not the awfulness of the outcome.
TBH old air bases are quite handy if you need to lob up accommodation in a hurry; large, flat, open spaces normally with services already connected, typically fenced off from the surrounding area with hard standing and access roads already in place.
Lets be honest It's more than likely to be the cheapest porta-cabins they can procure, rather than high a standard of accommodation.
I'd have thought the DM readership would be in favour there's every chance it'll end up more like Dachau than the Dorchester, miserable ****ers...
I seem to recall that there’s a huge shortage of farm labour in Lincolnshire. Could be a solution, eventually.
We do indeed have
a) a massive labour shortage
b) a massive pool of labour desperate to come here and work
However, any attempt to equate those two facts to come up with a simple potential solution will have you rendered a traitor, an enemy of the people and probably a communist
That was a slightly selective quote of mine you did there
Yes, it was, sorry, I did it for brevity not malignantly
Sure, but the Dams raid probably shortened the war, It certainly prevented the Nazis from manufacturing enough supplies for the invasion of Russia and the reconstruction of them diverted building and labour away from the construction of the Atlantic wall, and finally, perhaps not least, it put the fear into much of the German High Command. They realised very quickly after the event that if the Allies had the capability of accurately bombing with very little expensive resources a major piece of infrastructure that the Germans had zero intelligence about beforehand that they were rightly - to use the correct military term; ****ed. It hastened the rise of Nazi resistance within Germany and within the military.
For something so monumental to the overall outcome and length of the 2nd world war, it's (outside of the flag waving jingoistic crap) cruelly overlooked.
For something so monumental to the overall outcome and length of the 2nd world war, it’s (outside of the flag waving jingoistic crap) cruelly overlooked.
Yeah, to be honest I think we're both pretty much trying to say the same thing. Was it significant? Yes. Were the participants brave? Yes. Did loads of innocent people die? Yes. Should it be remembered? Yes. Should that remembrance be a solemn reflection on the awfulness of war, or, as you put it, flag waving jingoistic crap? I think we're both on the same page for that one, and it's not the same page as those bloody 'WW2 Weekends' you see at the local heritage railway, where everyone's having a lovely time dressed up in 1940's clobber and having a little ride on a jeep before some tea and cake in the refreshment tent. I'm always tempted to turn up dressed as an inmate from Belsen, or someone who's been living on rats in a cellar in Stalingrad for a year...
Seems sensible for a couple of reasons:
- minimises accommodation and logistics cost to the taxpayer
- prevents non genuine migrants from disappearing into the black economy before their claim can be assessed
- protects all asylum seekers from uk based modern slavery / county lines type scumbags - so helps to reduce organised crime
- hopefully enables the non genuine asylum seekers to be processed more quickly which should help to speed up the review time for the genuine ones
- enables migrants who are a risk to the public to be contained e.g. this guy
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rapist-return-uk-small-boat-migration-2023-7m6czvbfp
Don’t know if you’ve ever spent any time on military bases
More time than I really want to think about, from freezing, poorly ventilated victorian hovels in Kent and the Midlands, to '30s houses re-rolled to group living in Liconshire, to large tents pitched in a courtyard between buildings in Kabul. But yes, I know that airfields are windy, away from places and not ideal. My point is that accommodation _exists_ and is available in such places, often two things that are not possible in larger towns and cities.
My argument is the constant focus given to things like "The Dambusters' home" when it's just an old airfield that's not used any more. History is fine, remembering 617 Squadron is fine, but they are not there any more and that's not their fault. The physical buildings are. and standing empty, so at least let them be used for something.
so at least let them be used for something.
Don't disagree, I think they could be used for all sorts of things, I just don't think disused airbases are the right places for refugees, or migrants. Former home of 617 or not really.
@IHN, yep sounds like it 👍
The useable accommodation at Scampton has long since been sold off, the buildings there (with the exception of those just vacated by the Red Arrows and the met service) are derelict so new build accommodation will be required.
Link to article that has got the mail going:
https://thelincolnite.co.uk/2023/03/300m-scampton-development-could-be-totally-scuppered-by-asylum-seeker-plans/
As for employment of the folks there for agricultural purposes, most of the food production is in the south of the county around Boston and Spalding - an hour away on a good day!
However, any attempt to equate those two facts to come up with a simple potential solution will have you rendered a traitor, an enemy of the people and probably a communist
I ride, therefore I am.
TBH old air bases are quite handy if you need to lob up accommodation in a hurry; large, flat, open spaces normally with services already connected, typically fenced off from the surrounding area with hard standing and access roads already in place.
Lets be honest It's more than likely to be the cheapest porta-cabins they can procure, rather than high a standard of accommodation.
I'd have thought the DM readership would be in favour there's every chance it'll end up more like Dachau than the Dorchester...
Just look at all the history there. I mean that Christmas Decoration factory goes back to when Churchill visited and bought a spitfire bauble. I bet they want to flatten that as you can’t even talk about Christmas these days without going to jail.
That's across the road Drac, you can see the taxiway opposite parallel to the A15.
Mind you, the Christmas Decorations might provide some employment?
But that would mean putting all the migrants onto the Elf Service
Should it be remembered? Yes
Isn't the memorial in Woodhall, where people can actually go and see it if they're interested?
Not sure that a disused airbase which has much changed since mid-1943 has that much heritage value.
That’s across the road Drac, you can see the taxiway opposite parallel to the A15.
Yeah! But my joke wouldn’t work then.
🤣 I was thinking the same!
Having worked, stayed and visited a few of these places, they’re hardly ‘desirable’. Most of the buildings are 1940s or 1950s, poorly maintained, cold, damp. I remember staying at the officers mess at RAF Brampton whilst it was being de-occupied. Coming back in the dark to find no working lights and having to feel the numbers on the doors.
Housing refugees should be done in towns and cities where they can find a social life, settle and integrate, not abandoned airbases.
The proposal is an asylum processing centre. There are 145,000 people waiting on the Home Office to make an asylum application decision. This isn't about providing them with permanent homes, it's about housing people while their applications are being processed.
History is fine, remembering 617 Squadron is fine
But not always done correctly.
Seems an eminently sensible use of government property, rather than putting these people into hotels etc
eems an eminently sensible use of government property, rather than putting these people into hotels etc
I agree.
There must be an echo in the news. RAF Linton on Ouse last year anyone?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-63263818
I have been into a couple of hotels used to house asylum seekers - I can assure you that they were a long way from being luxurious.
Asylum applications take time to process. It's not like a couple of weeks of quarantine and then you're on your way. In the interim, these people will be kept in the middle of fing nowhere, miles from the same services that are needed to process those same applications! How many Pashtun interpreters or asylum paralegals are there in the middle of Lincolnshire?
I have stayed in the Mess at Scampton a fair few times. Its not exactly the Ritz but at least a roof, bed and (from memory, not a lot of) hot water. Shame the Crow Bar wont be open.
I think its a fair use of public infrastructure too, but I just worry about the follow on plan for processing people, if indeed there is one.
Don’t know if you’ve ever spent any time on military bases, or airbases in particular but unless they’re being used for that purpose (or something very similar) they are god-awful places to be. Airbases tend to be in flat, windy featureless places away from everything else all of which are tremendous pluses when it’s an airbase, shocking bad otherwise, especially if you want to house people on them.
Not always, here in north Wiltshire, we’re surrounded by former airbases, some of which are still in use by parts of the Military. Castle Combe race circuit uses the perimeter road of the original airbase, Colerne has the base in the other side of the road, which I believe is a communications unit. Hullavington is now owned by Dyson, Lyneham is now used by REME, Kemble is Cotswold Airport, which is also used by an aircraft dismantling company. Yatesbury is now mostly farmland, but has a microlite flying centre on it, plus some of the old hangars and other buildings are still in use, and it’s right next to Avebury. All of them have villages and facilities close by. It’s not Lincolnshire down here.
There must be an echo in the news. RAF Linton on Ouse last year anyone
I think one of the reasons Linton on Ouse was rejected was it's location - it's quite difficult to get to involving a trek along some fairly minor roads. Scampton is a couple of miles north of Lincoln on the main road to the motorway network.
I'm fairly certain Scampton is being phased out anyway, the Red Arrows are moving/moved to Waddington, and the whole place is being decommissioned.
Having lived down the road, and driven past hundreds of times, it's certainly not a particularly salubrious place. The whole place is run down, most of the old barracks/buildings are empty and falling apart. I think the main use for the site now is storing staff caravans out of season. Our neighbour used to work there on the Red Arrows and wasn't particularly complimentary about the facilities.
Essentially, it's a very old, run down air field, on a windy ridge, just outside of Lincoln. There's any number of similar places locally that were decommissioned years ago and used for all kinds of things now. Storage, pyrotechnic testing, motocross tracks, farmland....not sure any of these uses are any more noble than looking after people who need it.
I lived there in the 80s, the spare housing was taken up by the MET Police who were temporarily housed there for the miners strikes at the time. It was the best camp I'd lived at whilst my old man was in the RAF and probably still in a better state than most of the current military establishments. There used to be a Vulcan at the end of the runway but I'm pretty sure that got shifted a long time ago. You can have enough of the Red Arrows too after seeing them every day! Not really relevant to this story.
Numerous barracks in Germany are now being used for asylum seekers and old quarters have been given to Ukrainian families, this has been happening as far back as the war in former Yugoslavia
If it was part of an integrated, coherent and cohesive plan it might be worth considering.
It isn't.
I'm against it.
If it was part of an integrated , coherent and cohesive plan it'd be the only example of such a thing in many, many years of shitshow government
As suggested elsewhere, it seems that it's better to use asylum-seekers for political propaganda than to process them efficiently and let them get on with their lives
Is this intended to stir up more hatred and divide?
In Lincolnshire? The country we've become over the last few years is exactly what Lincolnshire was like when I was there 20 years ago. 🙂 They're way ahead of the curve there
Wasn't Lincolnshire the only county still in favour of Brexit in a recent poll?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-regrets-map-uk-b2272117.html
Numerous barracks in Germany are now being used for asylum seekers
That's certainly what the Germans are using the old JHQ near Rheindalen for.
As suggested elsewhere, it seems that it’s better to use asylum-seekers for political propaganda than to process them efficiently and let them get on with their lives
Indeed. Sadly a change of government, which looks increasingly probable, is unlikely to bring about huge change in the system.
Quite possibly faster asylum processing with lucrative contracts for private companies but not necessarily massively more humane.
Labour established the privately run notorious Yarl's Wood immigration removal centre, which for years was riddled with scandals, protests, allegations of sexual abuse, and hunger strikes.
Almost as soon as it was opened Yarl's Wood was hit by scandals :
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/jul/23/immigration.immigrationandpublicservices
And at least one Labour government minister wasn't shy to to suggest that asylum seekers and immigrants were being given housing priority over Brits.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/may/20/immigration.immigrationandpublicservices
Those comments by a Labour minister were condemned as pandering to the far-right:
Nancy Kelly, head of UK and international policy at the council, said: 'The way to counter some of the views that are put forward by the far-right parties is not by trying to follow their lead.'
If it was part of an integrated, coherent and cohesive plan it might be worth considering.
It isn’t.
I’m against it.
this. the problem is not the number of refugees. the problem is the slowness of processing them.
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That’s certainly what the Germans are using the old JHQ near Rheindalen for.
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and Herford. Was in Paderborn in December and some of the old quarters have Ukrainians in now though most are empty still, one camp has been flattened and the other is in the process of being developed. We were one of the last units to leave Minden and they moved refugees in the day we moved out. Good use of empty real estate IMO. There was a brief amount of rioting from the refugees in Herford a few years ago, about conditions if I remember rightly
Quite a pertinent message for today, St Patrick's Day, from across the Irish Sea :
https://twitter.com/rtenews/status/1636276520271458309?s=20