Mothballing fear over RAF Cosford

RAF Cosford will be "mothballed" and hundreds of staff left with "nothing to do" for years after plans to expand it as a military base were delayed for at least two years, an MP claimed today.

Defence minister Bill Rammell yesterday confirmed that the movement of 2,600 troops and their families from Germany to the base would not go ahead until at least 2018.

The movement of troops from 1 Signal Brigade to Beacon Barracks in Stafford has also been delayed.Military chiefs have blamed the need to "accommodate other defence resource priorities" for the delay in moving 102 Logistic Brigade to Cosford.

The relocation of training schools from Cosford to RAF St Athan in Wales to create a £14 billion defence training base is still due to go ahead in 2014.

It will leave no military presence at the base currently home to more than 3,000 staff and trainees and has led to claims from Wrekin MP Mark Pritchard that RAF Cosford would be effectively "mothballed".

The Conservative MP also claimed that up to 400 civilian staff based there could lose their jobs because they would have "nothing to do".IntentMr Pritchard, whose Wrekin constituency includes Cosford, accused defence ministers of "financial incompetence" following the announcement of the delays.

He said: "Ministers are still intent on forcing the RAF into Wales while no longer having a jobs plan for the West Midlands.

This incompetence is likely to cost up to 400 jobs in Shropshire and hundreds more in the region. If ministers are secretly planning to mothball RAF Cosford and other Midlands bases, then they should have the guts to say so in Parliament.

The loyal and hard-working staff deserve that courtesy."Mr Rammell, Minister of State for the Armed Forces at the Ministry of Defence, insisted that the MoD would continue to make "full use" of RAF Cosford after the move of troops to Wales.`