This can't be good for the remaining airfields

Not an uncommon practice to be returning former airfields to their original use – part of the recycled concrete runways from Bircotes [RAF Worksop??] were crushed and used as hardcore for the approach routes to Newark’s second hangar.

Hi TwinOtter

RAF Bircotes and RAF Worksop are two different airfields. Bircotes was a small grass surfaced field just outside Bawtry. Worksop is near Scofton, to the east of Worksop. Indeed most of the concrete from the runways has now gone. Have a look at RAF Worksop on my website which shows the main runway extant, and later the remains, here

http://oldairfields.fotopic.net/c1043788.html

Some of Bircotes can be seen here

http://oldairfields.fotopic.net/c1040466.html

Regards

Noel

I actualy work in dunmow now and Lunch time last week I went to the site of Where the airfield used to be, there is still a bit of runway left ( which I ate my sandwich on), If you google map a lot of old airfields you can still see the layout of them and more often than not where they have been digging them up. Ramble over lol

The last time I was up at Great Dunmow (200-ish, I think), the runways and dispersals were being dug out and crushed a second time – I presume that the hardcore was left behind and covered with topsoil when the top layers of concrete were removed by St Ives Sand & Gravel, and the price had become enough for it to be worth recycling the hardcore too.

Adrian

Ten years ago I was told by someone ripping up some old peri track that if you use recycled concrete you were more likely to win contracts. Interestingly I was also told that bomb damaged London was a source of hardcore for the airfield building efforts in East Anglia. Recycling is nothing new – look at how many old castles were leveled for building stone.

Very true about the rubble from london, Many times at Shepherds grove we dug up wartime concrete and found bricks underneath with paint and wallpaper on them still. There is good money to be made in recycling concrete and asphalt.

Ten years ago I was told by someone ripping up some old peri track that if you use recycled concrete you were more likely to win contracts. Interestingly I was also told that bomb damaged London was a source of hardcore for the airfield building efforts in East Anglia. Recycling is nothing new – look at how many old castles were leveled for building stone.

The problem here is that to dig up ‘new’ aggregate out of a quarry the (expletives dleted) Government impose a tax on every ton that is dug up – I think it might now be £10 or more per ton. Digging up and crushing concrete runways is seen as restoring ‘brownfield’ sites and does not attract this tax. Crushed concrete is therefore much cheaper than quarried gravel. Also, digging up the concrete paves the way (sorry for that) for lots of new houses to be built all over the site of an old airfield. In fact, the crushed concrete could be used on site in the construction of the new roads, houses etc, saving thousands of lorry loads being brought in – how green is that? At present the concrete crusher is quite quickly munching its way across West Raynham, although the intent here is to recover the land for agricultural use. We have to face it that with the way this country is going, old airfields will soon be as dead as the Dodo.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t show concern but breaking up and re-use of concrete runways/peri tracks has been going on in rhe UK for decades now – most notably as hardcore for new motorways.

Roger Smith.

I.e Greenham Common and the newbury bypass? 🙁

Not an uncommon practice to be returning former airfields to their original use – part of the recycled concrete runways from Bircotes [RAF Worksop??] were crushed and used as hardcore for the approach routes to Newark’s second hangar.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t show concern but breaking up and re-use of concrete runways/peri tracks has been going on in rhe UK for decades now – most notably as hardcore for new motorways.

Roger Smith.

Those of us with grass-strips on the site of old airbases probably view this with less alarm than pure preservationists.

The spirit of flight is kept alive at Knettishall even though the concrete is long gone.

If it remained we’d be facing the same problems as Shipdham and other dromes in the area with the runway surfaces breaking up to a prop-damaging extent and the need for huge funds should anything be done about it.

At Knettishall we just mow the 800 metres of grass strip that runs along the alignment of the old main runway.

Moggy

The old St Ives Sand & Gravel Co were doing just this in the early 1960’s. I didnt think it would be long before a similar scheme came along. Financial gain, and the rush to recycle everthing, is sadly the norm these days, from scrapping the aircraft themselves, to eradication of the airfields.