New look at future of MoD sites
A new working party will be set up to look at the future use of Ministry of Defence sites in Bath.
Defence minister Kevan Jones agreed to set up the multi-agency group at a meeting in Whitehall with city MP Don Foster.
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MoD warminster road
The future of the Foxhill, Warminster Road and Ensleigh office sites - which together employ nearly 3,000 people - is in the balance as the MoD moves more staff to its Abbey Wood complex in Bristol.
Its original plan was to close down Foxhill and Warminster Road, but to leave the 26-acre Ensleigh site at Lansdown open.
But Mr Jones recently revealed that his department was now considering switching all the existing Bath jobs to Abbey Wood - ending a 70-year association between the armed forces and the city.
Mr Foster and other community leaders have been keen to persuade the MoD to maintain a presence in Bath.
But they also want to ensure that the sites being vacated by the MoD can play their part in meeting Bath and North East Somerset Council's Government-imposed targets for new housebuilding - so that homes do not need to be put up on greenbelt land.
The working party will involve B&NES, the West of England Strategic Partnership - which brings together the other local authorities in the west, and the regional development agency.
It will also include officials from the Defence Estates organisation as well as other MoD agencies with staff in Bath.
Liberal Democrat Mr Foster said his meeting with Mr Jones had been productive.
"I have made him aware of a number of issues in Bath, and he has agreed that the MoD needs to seek further local advice in putting together these plans.
"We need to have a timetable for Foxhill and Warminster Road so that we can effectively plan for their future. I think it's very important that we keep some of these MoD jobs at the Ensleigh site, and this working group will now have a chance to explore that and put forward the case for keeping jobs here.
"I'm delighted that we have managed to secure local involvement in the decision on the future of these sites."
Previously, the MoD had said it was planning to move Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) staff out of Foxhill, Ensleigh and Warminster Road to Abbey Wood.
It was predicted that other MoD staff working in the city would all then be concentrated at the Ensleigh offices.
But last month, Mr Jones revealed it was thinking about moving these other staff to Bristol as well by 2012.
There are still 1,200 staff at Foxhill, another 1,200 at Ensleigh and 550 at Warminster Road. These are split between the DE&S agency and finance and human resources departments.
The MoD has been associated with Bath since the old Admiralty moved to the city at the start of the war to avoid Hitler's bombs.
Councillor Roger Symonds (Lib Dem, Combe Down), in whose ward the 42-acre Foxhill site lies, welcomed the MoD's co-operation.
"In my experience it is very unusual for a large national institution to involve local people in decisions on the future of their land. We first of all must have some certainty about which sites are to become available for development and then make sure that the site or sites can help address the affordable housing crisis in Bath."
Letters obtained by The Bath Chronicle under the Freedom of Information Act show B&NES officials have been trying to pin down the MoD's future plans for the sites since 2007.
At that stage, the MoD had looked like consolidating its Bath operations on part of the Foxhill site, leaving two-thirds of it and the whole of Warminster Road for potential development.
Meanwhile, 300 members of the PCS union at Ensleigh will join hundreds of thousands of other civil servants in another day of strike action over changes to their redundancy terms next Wednesday.
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by Sulis, Bath
Saturday, March 20 2010, 10:14PM
“I pity anyone having to commute to Abbey Wood (including by train). With UWE relocating their other sites to an enlarged Frenchay campus the traffic is going to get even worse than at present. One can only imagine what it'll be like with up to 3,000 extra MoD staff. If only South Gloucestershire wasn't so incompetent at transport planning, including killing off the Bristol tram.”
by Jenna, Oldfield Park
Friday, March 19 2010, 8:49PM
“"Before everyone gets too excited can I just point out that the MOD have constantly been on the verge of moving out of Warminster Road since the early 1970s."
To be fair to the MoD, they have been doing some pretty serious moves all over the country in the last few years, like consolidating dstl into just Porton Down (Wilts), Fort Halstead (Kent) and Portsdown West (Portsmouth). It's a comparatively smaller move for Bath - after all, one of the sites moved to Porton Down was the Great Malvern labs, 100 miles away. I used to go to Malvern a lot by train from Bath, and the train happened to go via Filton. Bath-Filton took 25 minutes (only longer if you were on the train that has a 20min stop at Temple Meads).
Now, if you look at trains between Great Malvern and Salisbury (the nearest station to Porton), this journey takes 3-4h, and you are still eight miles from the site itself.
If they're willing to do a move like that, then making people in Bath go to Filton will hardly be seen as onerous.”
by Kirsten, Bath
Friday, March 19 2010, 6:15PM
“I don't think we would have minded so much of the car park had been too small but it wasn't. There were plenty of spaces - but they were at the bottom of the slope and our road was closer to their office.”
by Eagle Eye, Bath
Friday, March 19 2010, 5:40PM
“Before everyone gets too excited can I just point out that the MOD have constantly been on the verge of moving out of Warminster Road since the early 1970s. That's why the site hasn't been developed and, for example, the car park is too small Kirsten.
Also, it would be a huge and unacceptable waste of taxpayer's money for the MOD to sell off prime real estate to developers at rock bottom prices in a in a depressed market.”
by Kirsten, Bath
Friday, March 19 2010, 4:43PM
“What I call the HIOT Virus - Hey, it's only Twerton.”
by AA, Somerset
Friday, March 19 2010, 4:22PM
“Kirsten - having worked at all three sites I know Warminster Road is not at Lansdown! I really don't relish the thought of returning to Ensleigh anymore than I like the thought of going to Abbey Wood, so guess it will be down the job centre for me, but I will wait to be pushed rather than walk!
Lansdown never has any development, unless its upmarket....its long been a joke in this house that when they want to do social housing building, they will always choose Twerton/Foxhill over the precious Lansdown.”
by Kirsten, Bath
Friday, March 19 2010, 4:11PM
“That's very kind of you Dave but I haven't got the money just now. Only joking.
AA - the Warminster Road is not on Lansdown. Having lived on Lansdown - where I was widely regarded as the road's socialist because I read the Independent and not the acceptable Torygraph or Mail - I might concede you have a point.”
by Dave, Larkhall
Friday, March 19 2010, 3:47PM
“NO don't whisper it Kirsten! Shout it from the hilltops of Foxhill, Lansdown and Warminster Road.
These sorts of ideas always need a facilitator. Preferably one with the contacts, the drive, and most importantly the seed money to make things happen. There's only one name that comes to my mind.”
by AA, Somerset
Friday, March 19 2010, 3:34PM
“Kirsten - not at all..i'm one of the employees who might be shipped out to the ghost town that is Abbey Wood. I'm just going by the usual mootings of the Lansdown brigade who seem to get everything they want and never get any social housing in their back yards so to speak. I grew up in social housing, so can hardly be classed as a snob of any kind!”
by Jan, Bath
Friday, March 19 2010, 3:19PM
“Now Dave that is a superb idea! and Kirsten I was thinking about our friend Mr Dyson!
Maybe he can come and teach his creative genius here after all. Praise be! (I know that sounds sarcastic but I actually mean it. I was really bemused when Dyson wasn't able to have the other site. It was crazy!!!)”