Could RAF Wyton be among the surplus MoD land repurposed for new homes?

An airfield in Cambridgeshire could be included in a government push to build new homes on surplus Ministry of Defence (MoD) land.

It has been reported that the government wants to redevelop surplus MoD land, to support its pledge to build 1.5 million homes by the next Parliament.

Some of the homes are expected to be for troops, their families and veterans.

Wyton Airfield, near Huntingdon, has been named as one of the sites being looked at.

The possibility of developing the airfield has been considered for a number of years.

In 2016 a scoping report was submitted to Huntingdonshire District Council, which suggested 4,500 homes could be built at the airfield, alongside shops, a care home, new primary schools, a secondary school, and other community facilities.

Then in 2019 a planning application was put forward to build up to 700 new homes at the airfield, as well as new shops, a community hub, a pub, and play areas.

However, the application was withdrawn in 2020 as the developer said they wanted to “complete the design and technical work to address the comments of technical stakeholders”.

More recently, Wyton Airfield has been put forward as a suggested development site for the district council’s new Local Plan.

The submission, made during the authority’s call for sites, proposed around 4,500 homes, alongside a care home, shops and commercial leisure facilities.

If it went ahead the development could take over a decade to be built out.

The council concluded the site should progress to the next stage of consideration for the Local Plan as it would “make efficient use of previously developed land and is well located in relation to Huntingdon and St Ives for the provision of employment and services”.

But it noted it would be “highly dependent on transport infrastructure upgrades to the A141 and active travel infrastructure in the St Ives area promoted by the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority to be able to accommodate the level of travel demand”.

RAF Wyton is a UK Strategic Command Station and is home to the National Centre for Geospatial Intelligence (NCGI), which provides intelligence support to UK Armed Forces on operations globally.

It opened in 1916 and is also home to the Ministry of Defence Police Headquarters, the Defence Infrastructure Organisation Regional Headquarters and other departments. All military flying on the site ended in 2013.