Migrant plan for Dambusters’ site blown out of water
THE HISTORIC Dambusters’ Officers’ Mess is to be listed as a national treasure by the local council as part of an effort to thwart plans to turn the base into an asylum camp.
West Lindsey District Council in Lincolnshire is filing for listed status from Historic England to safeguard the building on RAF Scampton from which 617 squadron – the Dambusters – flew their famed missions that helped win the Second World War.
The council is considering legal action to block a Home Office proposal to use the dilapidated base to house up to 1,500 migrants removed from hotels.
The Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, is expected this week to announce plans to turn RAF Scampton and RAF Wethersfield in Braintree, Essex, into asylum centres as part of efforts to end the use of hotels for migrants, currently costing nearly £7 million a day.
To counter this, the council is seeking a £300 million regeneration deal to turn the Officers’ Mess into an aerospace hub and national heritage site.
“Enough is enough,” said a spokesman for West Lindsey District Council, whose campaign to preserve the building has been backed by 40 of Britain’s leading historians and a petition now signed by more than 40,000 people.
The 617 squadron – the Dambusters – was formed at the airfield from where 19 Lancaster bombers departed for the famous raid in 1943 to destroy three dams in the Ruhr valley in Germany’s industrial heartlands with “bouncing bombs” designed by the renowned engineer Barnes Wallis.
Explaining the listing decision, Sally Grindrod-Smith, the council’s director of planning, said: “The council is very concerned about the future of the former Officers’ Mess.
“The building appears to be deteriorating rapidly and without due care and attention this important historic feature of the site could be lost forever. That is why the council has made an application to Historic England to seek listed building status.”
The former Officers’ Mess, built in late 1936, is a type B mess, one of three standard officers’ mess designs constructed as part of a major expansion of Britain’s airfields, a policy that enabled the country to win the Battle of Britain in the air.
In its heyday, the building was used for accommodating officers as well as hosting formal functions. In 1943 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited to commend the crews in support of 617 Squadron after the dams raid.
In an open letter, the 40 historians who include Sir Antony Beevor, Sir Max Hastings and Dan Snow said: “To erase Scampton’s heritage, rather than preserve, protect and enhance it further, would be a scandalous desecration of immeasurable recklessness.”