Delight after gliding centre proposals are dropped (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Delight after gliding centre proposals are dropped

A CONTROVERSIAL proposal to move a gliding centre to an Upper Rissington Royal Air Force base has been dropped three years after it was first mooted.

The Ministry of Defence has finally announced it has scrapped its plan to move the Joint Service Adventure Training Gliding Instruction and RAF Gliding Soaring Association to RAF Little Rissington from RAF Bicester, Oxfordshire.

This was proposed so RAF Bicester could be closed and redeveloped for housing.

The plan met with massive opposition from neighbouring residents when Defence Estates first proposed it, on behalf of the MoD, in the summer of 2000.

Gliders already launch from the site but it was estimated that moving the centre there would have increased the annual number of flights from an average of 4,000 to 18,700.

Villagers feared that, although most gliders would be silent, the winches and powered aircraft launching many of them would have caused unacceptable noise.

Estimates indicated 66 percent of launches would have involved powered aircraft giving air tows.

Villagers claimed the remaining gliders would have been powered, generating even more noise.

Residents were also concerned that, with more people visiting the site, traffic would have increased.

The plan involved constructing a new hanger with ancillary accommodation, including bunk rooms and briefing rooms, which would have been sited near the four main hangers on the edge of the airfield.

Two larger hangers to the south and a smaller hanger would have been demolished.

Cotswolds Conservative MP, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, campaigned against the proposal.

This week, he revealed he had received a letter from Defence Minister, Ivor Caplin, confirming the centre would instead move to RAF Halton in 2004.

Mr Clifton-Brown said: "This is excellent news for my constituents. "It has been a long campaign but at last we can see an end to the problem. "I am delighted that perseverance has paid off."

Little Rissington Parish Council chairman, Robin Leach, said: "I'm not surprised.

"We always thought it would never happen because of all the local opposition.

"Our council always said that, while it's an MoD airfield, it's for them to do what they wish with it."