I notice that you now refer to the cockpit as ‘she’…..:D

John

I don’t believe that the MoD pay rates to the council, but under a scheme called Resource Accounting and Budgetting, individual departments are ‘charged’ a figure for the assets that are under their control. This approach led to large amounts of Defence real estate being demolished and spare parts sold off to keep the bean counters happy.

In our case we were the only occupants of a hangar that was falling into disrepair through lack of use. the MoD spent a lot of money on the building so that the Stations resident clubs and organisations could make use of it. However with the run down very few people are using it and it’s likely to remain largely empty until at least 2012 when the Army move into Wyton. I’d bet that the place will deteriorate in the mean time with no occupants:rolleyes:

We were/are in this exact position. For years we were given free accomodation at RAF Wyton on an Encroachment Licence, seeing as we had some RAF people involved and I was an MOD Civil Servant. However, as Wyton is gradually being run down the servicemen were posted and I left the MoD, Defence Estates decided that as we were no longer service orientated (never mind that Stirlings were based at Wyton!), they were going to charge us over £9k a year for our small woirkshop and storage area, this being the commercial rate. The fact that we are a small Charity carried no weight and wouldn’t be discounted, obviously this is beyond our means so we’re looking at new premises (at cost although significantly less than £9k).

The only good thing is that the MoD whilst not allowing us to undertake work there are at least allowing us to store items foc whilst we’re sorting somewhere else out. When we’re gone the rooms will be empty with no revenue at all(we would have been prepared to pay a peppercorn rent:confused:). So it seems like they’ve cut off their nose to spite their face.

John

Normal service to be resumed Cees? 😀