Campaigners for the closure of RAF Menwith Hill will resume their weekly protests this evening.
The protest first took place in 2000 but was halted in March last year due to the covid pandemic.
Supporters of the Menwith Hill Accountability Campaign will stand outside the main gates of the base from 6.00pm to 7.30pm.
Campaigner Sarah Swift said:
“This regular peaceful protest was started by the Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases in 2000. As has been said before, ‘It’s time they went!'”.
Built in the 1950s on the edge of Nidderdale, Menwith Hill is the United States’ largest overseas surveillance base. Giant radomes, or ‘golf balls’, are a distinctive feature of the site.
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Meanwhile, Harrogate Borough Council is expected to make a decision on the latest expansion at the base soon.
The Ministry of Defence, which owns the site, has submitted plans to add a new visitor centre, vehicle canopy and changes to the road junction on Menwith Hill Road.
However, the application has proved controversial because it would involve felling a memorial tree planted in memory of the late Bob Cryer MP in 1994.
Mr Cryer campaigned for transparency at Menwith Hill and secured a debate in parliament a few months before he died in 1994. He claimed the aim of the base was to “assert and retain United States supremacy”.
Mr Cryer’s widow, the former Keighley MP Ann Cryer, told the Stray Ferret she was “very upset” at the proposals.
Menwith Hill to expand with new ‘golf ball’Harrogate Borough Council has granted the Ministry of Defence planning permission to build a new 30-metre high radome and electrical substation at RAF Menwith Hill.
It follows an application last year from the MoD to build three more radomes at the site, which was also passed.
There are now over 30 distinctive radomes, or “golf balls”, at the secretive site. The radomes are believed to house satellites and transmitters.
Washburn Parish Council said it was concerned by the expansion, as well as the detrimental visual impact created by the new radome.
However, it said it “recognises the important security roll” that Menwith Hill plays.
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In granting the application, council case officer Mike Parkes said the national security benefits of the radome outweighed its “harmful effects” on the Nidderdale landscape.
Built in the 1950s on the edge of Nidderdale, Menwith Hill is the United States’ largest overseas surveillance base.
Since 2000, protestors have taken part in a weekly demonstration outside Menwith Hill, which has been halted due to lockdown.
Sarah Swift, from the Menwith Hill Accountability Campaign group, said:
“We find the expansion of the site and of the base’s operations very worrying indeed.
“We believe that the activities of the base do not enhance the security of our area, our country or our world.”