Success for Lamb's long running campaign to release RAF West Raynham

10.26.00am GMT Tue 26th Oct 2004

Norman Lamb has been successful in his campaign for the release of RAF West Raynham base for civilian use, confirmed in a letter to Mr Lamb from Defence Minister Ivor Caplin.

"This is very good news for local people and North Norfolk," said Mr Lamb. "There is now a real opportunity to bring the more than 170 houses back into use for the benefit of the community. I am pressing for a meeting between the District Council and the Defence Estates to take place as soon as possible to discuss the future for West Raynham, and to urge immediate progress on developing a planning brief for the site.

"There is still a massive amount of work to do and the problem is that the properties have decayed so much that the investment required to get them back into use will be very substantial."

Extracts from Ivor Caplin's letter to Norman:

"I know that on behalf of your constituents you have taken a keen interest in the future use of RAF West Raynham. We have now reached a stage where we can declare this site surplus and move to dispose of it as quickly as possible. To that end, officials from the Defence Estates (the MOD agency responsible for our estate) are already in touch with the local authority with a view to arranging a preliminary meeting, not only to discuss the way forward on West Raynham, but also to exchange early views on the future of Coltishall and Neatishead. It is my sincere hope that, working together, we can now bring RAF West Raynham back into productive civilian use as soon as possible."