It's Not Too Late to Stop the Tragedy of the Dam Busters' Base

But Urgent Action Needed Now...

Sometimes, it’s easy to think that the people who make up this current government – and even more so the last one – are not especially smart people. It’s also easy to conclude that government departments don’t talk to one another. There are just too many areas of day-to-day management that defy any kind of logic. One matter that has repeatedly crossed my path, and which seems to be blighted by especially non-sensical incompetence, is over the fate of what used to be RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, one of the most famous airfields in the UK and which could still – just about – be once again given has the highest licensing classification from the Civil Aviation Authority, (CAA), and be returned to its former state as a functioning airfield.

I first visited RAF Scampton with George ‘Johnny’ Johnson more than a dozen years ago. At the time, he was one of only three surviving members of the Dams Raid, the single most famous bombing mission in the RAF’s long history, and which took place eighty-two years ago this month, in May 1943. At the time, he’d not been back since the war, but much of it was still familiar to him: the Mess, the barracks blocks, the pre-war hangars and even Guy Gibson’s office. He’d not been in that small, single room since April 1943 when his skipper, Flight Lieutenant Joe McCarthy – the only American on the raid – stormed in to see Gibson, with Johnson in tow, and demanded that the new 617 Squadron commander allow his bomb aimer a couple of days leave to get married. Gibson agreed, Johnny made it to the church on time, survived the mission and the rest of the war, and remained devoted to his wife for the next sixty-two years until she passed away in 2005.

Scampton was still an active RAF airfield back when I first visited, but the Mess was empty. It was eerie to wander through those hollow rooms, the ghosts of the past following our steps through those long corridors and as we poked about the empty digs where the Dambusters slept, wrote last letters, and to where fifty-three did not return from that daring low-level raid. Faded camouflage paint, brushed on during the war, could still be seen on many of the barrack blocks, while the layout and vast expanse of the airfield itself remained largely unchanged from when it had been first redeveloped in the 1930s. Johnny was moved by the experience, as was I. It was a privilege to be there with him.

I’ve been many times since, although the last time was to witness the Red Arrows’ final rehearsal before the start of the new display season in 2022, by which time Scampton’s end as an RAF base was drawing near. Nostalgia is not a reason to keep going with any military base that has become redundant, however, and the base was finally closed in 2023 when the Red Arrows moved to RAF Waddington. None the less, an exciting development plan had been put in place in conjunction with West Lindsey District Council that looked set to continue Scampton’s – and Lincolnshire’s – rich aviation history, and, in the same throw, offer an important levelling-up plan for the area. And ‘levelling up’ deprived areas was something about which the Conservative government at the time had been making great play. With a visionary £300 million planned regeneration of the site and the promise of more than 1,000 jobs, the aim had been to make Scampton a North Midlands hub of aviation, aerospace and satellite technology. Honouring the incredibly rich heritage of Scampton was part of their aim.

The ‘Bomber County’ of Lincolnshire is among the UK’s least affluent, and that a high-tech hub that promised jobs, genuine technological innovation and honoured the airfield’s heritage had been gaining excitement and approval at every quarter as an opportunity to be grabbed with both hands. The plans also included turning the Officers’ Mess into a hotel and military veterans’ club. The thought of sleeping where so many courageous air men once slept – Guy Gibson VC included – is a salivating one. During the Second World War, there were fifteen airfields in this immediate part of Lincolnshire, all of them now gone and with them, almost all their heritage too. With Scampton, there had been a real chance to do things differently and for the local council, the MOD and RAF to work together with the private sector for a lasting future for the site and its rich heritage.

RAF Scampton has a proud history beyond its association with the Dams Raid. It is one of the very best-preserved Royal Air Force stations from the 1930s expansion scheme – a scheme that the government of the time backed with unprecedented commitment and which helped save Britain in 1940 and ultimately played a decisive part in winning the war five years later. The form, function and characterisation of the site is exceptional. The four original Grade 2 listed hangars, with their airfield setting, are largely untouched since the days of the Avro Lancaster and Vulcan. Not only did Wing Commander Guy Gibson win a Victoria Cross – Britain’s highest award for gallantry – from Scampton, two more were awarded for other operations flown from there. No other airfield in the country can boast three VCs.

It would be wrong, though, to assume that RAF Scampton’s story began and ended with the Dam Busters. There was a First World War Royal Flying Corps airfield on this site that pre-dates its 1930s development. It was home to RAF Bomber Command squadrons throughout the Second World War. Post-war, it became an important Cold War base, variously to both the RAF and United States Air Force. It stored nuclear weapons, and Vulcan V-Bombers were based there; it was from Scampton that the Vulcans later mounted the famous and daring very long-range bombing raid on Port Stanley in 1982 as part of the Falklands campaign. In fact, Scampton Holdings and the local council have recently been working closely with the Vulcan to the Sky Trust to relocate one of the Vulcans that last flew from Scampton back to its old airfield as part of a future heritage attraction – and as a result of a similarly uncertain future for nearby Doncaster Airport. In 1968, it became the airfield chosen to hold the disbandment ceremony of RAF Bomber Command. The airfield also later became home to the Central Flying School, and since 1992, it has been the No.1 Air Control Centre, echoing the important part played by RAF Bentley Priory, the Headquarters and command centre for RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain. And, of course, it has also been, variously since 1983, the home of the internationally renowned Red Arrows display team.

At the very moment the private investment plan was about to be signed off, the Home Office decided instead that it would be used as a processing and holding centre for young male asylum seekers. The team at Scampton Holdings were horrified, West Lindsey Council was horrified, so too was Lincoln University and the vast majority of those living in Lincolnshire, 75% of whom had voted in favour of Brexit largely over the issue of immigration. Most recognized that the private investment plan offered not only a great opportunity for the county, both in terms of an economic boost and as a nod to heritage; locals and those in the aviation and aerospace industry alike were shocked that this would be kicked into the long grass by a government that had been repeatedly talking about levelling-up but showing very little evidence of putting such phrases into meaningful action. With Scampton, another opportunity to act on their pledge had seemingly gone up in smoke – and this was all the more incomprehensible as it wouldn’t have cost the government a penny. They’d have had all the gain and none of the pain.

Since that decision by Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary at the time, more than £60 million of public money has been spent on Scampton preparing it for the influx of asylum seekers. Both Tories and Labour repeatedly tell us the coffers are empty; that there’s no money. No money to repair roads, to re-establish youth centres, to clean rivers etc, etc. But there is £62 million to spend on desecrating one of the most important airfields in the country.

No more than 300 asylum seekers were ever expected for an RAF base that had a capacity for thousands of military personnel and, until very recently, dozens of temporary portacabin accommodation blocks remained standing empty on the aprons and taxiways, degrading the tarmac further with every passing day. It will probably be of no surprise to learn that NOT ONE asylum seeker has yet passed through Scampton’s gates. In the two years since the RAF left, this famous old airfield could have now been buzzing with activity, enterprise and initiative. Instead, it remains empty, forlorn and decaying, with no evidence of any interest from the Home Office to look after the numerous listed buildings on the site. The Officers’ Mess might soon, if not already, be too far gone for redevelopment. It is a tragedy.

The incoming Labour government promised to end this nonsense and to get the Scampton Holdings project back on track, but while they have overturned the plans to turn this iconic base into a detention centre, they have not, after all, backed the private development plan and the hugely supportive local council. Angela Raynor wants more houses and Scampton is a large area of real estate that would do very nicely. So, instead, the wishes of the local council – and most living in the area – have been ignored and now the Government is offering to sell the entire site to the highest bidder – and most likely hoping this will be a private building firm who will turn the area into a raft of new homesteads named, no doubt, ‘Gibson Close’ and ‘Lancaster Crescent.’

The country needs more homes but it also needs to urgently rearm. At various think-tanks, meetings at NATO and discussions with men and women who know what they are talking about, I have heard this message coming through loud and clear and thank goodness. And one of the words repeatedly mentioned is the need for ‘mass’: numbers. Lots of drones, lots of aircraft, lots of satellites. Even when I recently went to interview the Prime Minister with my We Have Ways of Making You Talk podcast co-host, Al Murray, the first thing Sir Keir pointed out was that the prime duty of the PM was to defend the citizens of the country. Yes, absolutely! And it’s a greater duty than building new homes.

So, for Scampton there is still – just about – a plan in place that offers any number of ticks in the right box. The Scampton Holdings proposal is promising a continued use of the airfield – and an immediate plan for a fully licenced CAA classification that will see it forma a critical part of the new UK Strategic Airfield Network (SAN) - to create a high-tech aviation and aerospace hub, aspects of current and future defence that are vital. It will provide jobs long into the future in a deprived part of the country – jobs and ongoing Treasury income that would considerably outrun any building project. It will also safeguard the incredible heritage of Scampton. What’s not to like? To any sane person, absolutely nothing.

It seems incredibly crass to me that the government has now put the site up for tender and at a guide price far in excess of the original offer accepted before Suella Braverman’s Home Office put its colossal spanner in the works. A private company, Universal Defence & Security Solutions, holds a small stake in Scampton Holdings; Co-Chair of UDS is General Sir Richard Barrons, one of the former Commanders of Joint Forces given the task of preparing the Government’s latest Strategic Defence Review. Where’s the joined-up thinking here? Instead, Scampton Holdings now has to compete with other bids. Almost certainly the decision has already been made – let’s face it, Scampton is going to become a building site, the runway ripped up, listed hangars torn down. As it happens, the previous government had already sent in the Defence Infrastructure Organization, (DIO), to gut the site of its heritage: the museum has gone, Gibson’s office, once carefully reconstructed, has now been stripped out. No-one at the Home Office or Ministry of Defence or DIO seems to know or is willing to say where all this irreplaceable material has gone, despite being repeatedly asked by irate people like myself. Stored somewhere? Dumped in a skip? Who knows? Surely, it’s not just me that thinks this is utterly disgraceful?

At any rate, a golden opportunity is now going to waste – through blinkered thinking, short-sightedness, through ignorance, through the government and civil service not talking to one another, and through a lack of long-term planning and foresight that is, frankly, a disgrace as well as unspeakably depressing. Is it any wonder people despair of our politicians?

It’s not, however, too late. Not yet. There are people within the government and within the civil service who can wake up, join some dots, and ensure Scampton’s long heritage extends deep into the future and that it continues to play a vital role in the defence of this country. Here’s hoping but I’m not holding my breath…