Driffield

[Phillip Rhodes]

RAF Driffield Petition - Can you Help?

Thinking of setting up a proper petition to save RAF Driffield. The premise is simple, former RAF Driffield is owned by Strawsons Property. They plan to demolish the camp at Driffield and build 500 hundred houses. My plan is to present a petition to everyone involved in the planning process.

The thing about petitions is that they are largely innocuous and quickly disappear from sight. You present a petition to some bigwig and then what? My proposal is to email a word.doc petition form to my family, friends and supporters, which they can print off and get others to sign. They would then post the form/s back to me. I would then scan the pages to make book.

There is a superb online Print on Demand (POD) service, provided by lulu.com. The premise is simple: I recently published The Death of an Aerodrome, which is a 154 page account of my campaign to save RAF Driffield. The cost per copy was only £4.50. How, even an A4 (400 page) bound copy of the Save RAF Driffield petition, would still be affordable enough to send copies to everyone involved. We are only talking of around 12 copies. I would post these copies direct to the councillors involved, with additional copies going to Strawsons Property, etc. The original would then be symbolically presented to some bigwig, or other.

I’ve tried the gov.uk online petition in the past and it didn’t work for me.

I want to collate signatures from around the UK and the world, then scan and print them as a tool to convince those in power (planning officials) that RAF Driffield is important enough to be preserved through sympathetic redevelopment.

What do you think? If I can get 100 people to collect 100 signatures (four x A4 sheets of paper per person), that’s 10,000 signatures. Still trying to word the petition, though. Interested? Can you help? I need commitment!

[Stevo]

Hi Phillip

It is a heart braking situation and I would be happy to sign any petition to save our heritage, After all theses places are the castles of the future! Can you image a developer being allowed to pull down Alnwick castle to build 500 homes I think not.

But

I feel in the country we live in today its all for nothing, particularly where money is concerned. The country we live in today has no interest in heritage or history which I find really sad.

English Heritage for example; The building at RAF Alconbury that has been given the 'highest categories of listing in the English Heritage register of buildings of architectural and historic importance' and its only 19 years old, you can't work them out?????

I feel that no matter what people do, money will always come first. No one is interested, least of all developers, in what purpose the buildings once served, or re-using buildings? that costs far to much, it's simply cheaper to pull everything down and build these little cheap box towns that are popping up all over the place.

I highly respect you Phillip for continuing your fight for Driffield and I really hope you get what you are fighting for, but I have a feeling its going to be in vain.

Finally we where corresponding a few years ago about me making a 3d model of Driffield and how it might look if redeveloped, did you ever get one done?

Regards

Stephen Legg

[NJR]

A free e-book about RAF Driffield by Philip Rhodes can be found here:

http://www.driffieldaerodrome.co.uk/ebook/ebook.pdf

Phils website, dedicated to RAF Driffield:

http://www.driffieldaerodrome.co.uk/

NJR

[PNK]

In the Ken Delve book for the North of England there is an aerial shot (with the layout penned over) of Driffield with a layout the differs from the end of war one. It is obviously Driffield as the hardstands match. The runways do not match. Does the book's photo reflect the grass runways prior to rebuild?

Peter

[PNK]

I suspect the answer will be found in Air 10/4038 (dated 1943). I have had a few copies from TNA relating to Lakenheath and Lindholme and they contain better aerial photos than the 1944 version (at least for layout purposes) and are from around 1942 and have not been inked over. Hopefully Driffield will be there.
If I can get of my backside I will try and view the originals after purchasing the camera recommend for copying!

Peter

[PJH]

There are several styles of plans shown in Ken Delve's books, all from various official sources and publications. The type of which the Driffield plan is an example were generated in 1943, as mentioned by PNK. Oddly they were based on an aerial photo dating from earlier in the War, when many of the airfields had either not been built yet or were in an earlier stage of development (such as Driffield). The runways, peritrack and dispersals were then superimposed in black or white ink, along with one or two other landmarks such as the railway line in this case. I believe that they were intended as a recognition aid for air crew.

As far as Driffield is concerned, I strongly recommend obtaining a copy of 'Strong Foundations' by Geoff Simmons and Barry Abraham. This is one of the better single airfield histories I've read and includes several plans and aerial shots. It's clear that Driffield was originally an all-grass airfield with no perimeter track, as reflected by the background aerial shot in Ken Delve's book, although the Southern loop of dispersals had been added by 1941. A perimeter track and further pan dispersals were laid in 1942/3 as per the plan – an aerial photo in the Driffield book dated 19th June 1943 shows them nearing completion. Runways were to be laid in 1943, giving the proposed layout shown in Ken's book. However the bomb dump would have been too close to the 11/29 runway and so was rebuilt slightly further North, allowing the runways to be reorientated and a new section of peritrack to be laid.

Therefore the Military Airfields of Britain plan represents just that: a plan that was modified in reality to give the configuration shown in the second plan in the book. Note that this dates from a series of plans generated in the early 1950s. The Driffield example shows both the Operational Readiness Platforms and Aircraft Servicing Platform built in 1951.

Peter

[PNK]

I actually did walk past Driffield in 1977



Peter

[Ossington_2008]

From Mar 94. Was it deliberate army policy to make an airfield so unusable the RAF wouldn't want it back?

[jason]

Visited here on Sunday 1st March with Noel as my guide, we took loads of excellent shots and walked miles!!
Whilst there we took a shot of this wall painting in one of the offices in the Main stores.
Has anyone any info on this particular Lightning and it's significance if any to Driffield.



As you can see, it's now coming up to it's 27th birthday.

[PNK]

From 74 to 29. Must have been done for an ex 74sqn pilot. But why at Driffield?