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22
Jun 2021
Weekly Menwith Hill protests to resume tonight
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:
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.
Read more:
Upset and anger at plans to remove MP’s memorial tree at Menwith Hill
Menwith Hill to expand with new ‘golf ball’
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.
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