Dear Home Secretary, 

I write in connection with the plans for RAF Scampton that have been briefed to the media. Those of us at the Scampton community meeting on Monday night were given a second hand briefing from your department: apparently you plan to put 1,500 men into the RAF station, blocking the transfer of the site to the local council and scuppering pre-existing £300 million regeneration plans for the area. Instead you plan to house these men largely in shipping container style accommodation along Scampton’s runway (one of the longest in the UK, which we had hoped to see used in the UK space industry). 

I invite you to RAF Scampton on Thursday 30th March, the day before the base is due to be transferred on the 31st, or any day that would work for you to see for yourself why your plans must change. Many members of the local community in and around Scampton, veterans who have a connection with the station, historians and members of the heritage community who appreciate the significance of this site have also signed this letter in a show of the strength of feeling. 

An officer of West Lindsey District Council confirmed on Monday that if your plans go ahead, Scampton and the surrounding area will lose all of the £300 million of investment secured for the development of the site into a centre for heritage, aviation and the space industry as part of plans with broad cross-party and community support which are expected to create thousands of jobs. These plans are outlined here.

We are concerned that you do not understand how unsuitable this site would be for housing vulnerable men. The site needs major investment to be habitable, there are no appropriate services, few transport links, and Lincoln is a dangerous walk down the A15 away. The local councils and police and crime commissioner have set out in public and private their concerns that they do not have the resources they need to deliver for the existing population, let alone for any increase in demand created by the vulnerable people you propose putting into the county. Meeting those needs would require more funds, as each council has already set out. 

Should you proceed, you will not only cost us the £300 million of investment and thousands of jobs that are expected to be created, the heritage opportunities for the historic home of the Dambusters will be lost and you will be creating a situation which we believe will be both inhumane and unworkable. 

We have organised a petition against this proposal which has secured over 42,000 signatures in a little over a week. We were told that you are yet to make a final decision, despite Serco placing adverts for staff for a migration facility. 

So before you do decide, please know that the local community are utterly opposed to your plans, not because we are anti-migrant, but because they are utterly unsuited to Scampton, because they will be inhumane, because they will doom heritage plans, and because they will cost the local area £300 million of investment and thousands of high tech jobs in exactly the sectors which are our traditional strengths. 

We would welcome a public commitment that RAF Scampton is no longer being considered, to enable the investment plans to move forward through the planning process on 13 April as West Lindsey District Council have long anticipated. We would also welcome a response to the Freedom of Information requests we have submitted to try to understand how this situation has arisen. We look forward to welcoming you next week. 

Hamish Falconer
Organiser of the petition and Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Lincoln