WHILE villagers and service personnel try to come to terms with the announcement that RAF Lyneham is to close, rumours are starting to circulate that the Army could move in.

Andy Humm, manager of the village website Lyneham Village and Beyond, said: "There are whispers about plans for the Army to move in and I for one think that would be a good idea.

"The Army already have a presence at Lyneham in the shape of the 47AD squadron, which despatches equipment loads from the back of aircraft.

"And while the base certainly boasts the relevant buildings and barracks for another branch of the Armed Forces to move in, its civilian uses are severely hampered because of contamination which has occurred through the base's military activities during the last 60 years."

As well as ruling out new housing, the contamination also means that a return to agriculture would only be possible after the land had lain fallow for 30 years, he said.

Mr Humm said he thought that military use had to be top of the agenda. "We don't want our village to end up as a ghost town," he said.

The Minister of State for Defence, Adam Ingram, announced the closure of RAF Lyneham in a letter to North Wiltshire MP James Gray on Friday.

Mr Ingram revealed that the UK's air transport commitments, including the Hercules C130J aircraft currently based at RAF Lyneham, would transfer to RAF Brize Norton in around seven years' time. This will mean a loss of all the 2,510 service and 280 civilian posts at Lyneham.

Tomorrow, Mr Gray and representatives of Wiltshire County Council, Lyneham Parish Council, Wootton Bassett Town Council and North Wiltshire District Council will meet to discuss the best way forward.