Politicians and members of the military were at a meeting in Nesscliffe on Tuesday to give the community an update on a scheme resettling Afghans in the UK.
Julia Buckley MP, Councillor Ed Potter, Major Gerry Gannon and Colour Sgt Douglas Bergh fielded questions on how long the scheme would last before the base is turned back into a training centre.
Julia Buckley MP, Councillor Ed Potter, Major Gerry Gannon and Colour Sgt Douglas Bergh fielded questions on how long the scheme would last before the base is turned back into a training centre.
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00:00return to a military training base, if training is now taking place
00:04elsewhere, what is to stop the MOD or the DIO, which I think is the Defence
00:08Infrastructure Organisation, relinquishing Neskliff and handing it
00:12over to the Home Office? And just to add that preamble, obviously
00:17ministerial letters were received and shared with the community pre-election,
00:21we've now got a different set of ministers which falls under your
00:24remit, can you provide any sort of reassurances or information about how
00:30that might be handled in the future, if these conversations were to take place and things like that?
00:36Yes, I sent the letter already asking if there's any details at the moment, when
00:42the scheme might finish and seeking assurances whether the site is
00:45earmarked to be used for any other schemes. It might just be that it's very early to ask that question, you know, if you don't know yourself.
00:52So we want to return to, we want it back within the green community, so at the moment we are
00:58training overseas, purely because of the role that we're training for, which I can't disclose here, but we do
01:08want to bring this back within the training estate, it's just we've got to
01:12wait till the scheme finishes and then it will come back to the training estate, hence we're
01:16trying to upgrade it for us.
01:19The terrain here is quite specific, isn't it, quite useful in terms of particular training, so it's a really useful site in that training capacity, and also with the strategic link to Shawbury, so I'm going over to Shawbury next week I think, also to make contact with them and to make those connections a bit stronger, because I think it's important that this is following through from both sides.
01:39Our intention is just to be saying we've had this since the early 1900s and we wish to still train here because of the real estate and what it offers us, lots of bang noise,
01:48keep you awake at night.
01:50So as soon as I have any answers to those of course we'll share them in the evening.
01:54Thank you very much.