GRAHAM BROWN

At first sight, Charles James Burke realised he had found his field of dreams.

Having completed an arduous 13-day journey north from Hampshire, RAF No 2 Squadron’s commanding officer would have been glad, on February 26 1913, to finally land in Angus – chosen as the location for Britain’s first operational military air station.

But Major Burke wasn’t happy with the spot where he first touched down and a recce of the coast around Montrose revealed the glorious expanse of Broomfield Farm a mile north of the town.

Flat, well-drained and served by good prevailing winds in its position beside the North Sea, Major Burke knew it was an ideal site for the base which would train hundreds of pilots over two world wars.

More than a century on, those same fields are at the centre of a commercial vision as ambitious as Burke’s was in military terms, as Angus prepares to battle back from the impact of the pandemic battering the global economy.

However, the Angus town already possesses the momentum of recent developments linked to its strategic position for the offshore and renewables sectors.

Global outfit Baker Hughes delivered a £30 million-plus vote of confidence with the creation of its subsea centre of excellence, a stateof-the-art facility opened last year alongside the site for the new project.

Montrose Port is on the brink of a hoped-for renewables boom, already chosen as the preferred operations base for the 114-turbine Seagreen development around 15 miles off the Angus coast, which will deliver enough electricity to power a million homes when it becomes Scotland’s biggest offshore wind farm.

This latest announcement has the potential to catapult Angus into a boom period many will be hoping has echoes of the oil bonanza which transformed Aberdeen just 40 miles up the road.

Infrastructure beyond the bounds of the Zero Four site will be key and Tay Cities cash could have a big part to play in completing the jigsaw.

But if it can harness an economic tailwind to build on its upward trajectory, Montrose can launch a new era of prosperity from Major Burke’s runways where squadrons of young flyers gained their wings.

Infrastructure beyond the bounds of the Zero Four site will be key and Tay Cities cash could have a big part to play in completing the jigsaw

Roseanna Cunningham, Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform, announced the development plans.