Heritage Centre

Following the conclusion of consultation exercise on the Planning Framework for West Camp we move a little closer to our goal. No serious objections were raised against the framework, and the bringin back into use the (currently) redundant buildings and the provision of a Heritage Centre were commonly applauded.

Observations were received from The London Green Belt Council who are reserving their position to comment once the detailed plans are in, but broadly accepted the proposals. Air Displays International were concerned that the re-occupation of the buildings might place further restrictions on the annual Air Fair and asked that this should be considered. A spokesman for St Goerge's RAF Memorial Chapel raised the issue of access to the proposed Heritage Centre through the existing gates of the Chapel, as did several other agencies.Tony Exeter, Chairman of the London Borough of Bromley Residents Federation, was supportive of the active use of the historic buildings and recommended that the remains of the former Aeroplane Shed be preserved if possible. Bob Neill MP supported the framework, as did the chairman of Leaves Green and Keston Vale Residents' Association. Our own chairman, Gordon Wright, made the points we had culled from members which were broadly in favour of the framework but objections were made to the use of the Chapel entrance, the proposed demolition of the remains of the Areoplane Shed and agreement was voiced with others on the proposal to make the entrance to the main sitevia a roundabout at the top of Saltbox Hill.

Biggin Hill Airport Director, Peter Lonegan, raised some technical issues regarding airside access to the runway from West camp but in broad terms the Airport management were in favour of bringing the buildings back into use and, hopefully,to integrate some of the proposed uses with the business of the airport itself.They are also in favour of the development of the Heritage Centre on the site.

Lastly, and most importantly, the  Greater London Authority have been supportive  of the scheme as it does not involve the expansion of the Airport to take more passengers. They were concerned that the collective footprint of the existing building should not expand and where some buildings are to be demolished (like the OASC building to make way for our Heritage Centre) there should be no substantial increase in built area.
 
The next stage, therefore, is for the owners to submit a detailed planning application to the  London  Borough of  Bromley for consideration. There is no definate date for this yet but Peter Martin, who is head of Heritage and Urban design at LB Bromley, is hopeful that this will be in place and  possibly  to  have  been  considered  by the time we publish the autumn issue of our magazine 'The Bump'. We are at least one step further forward.