HC Deb 15 July 1986 vol 101 cc836-7
2. Sir Peter Mills

asked the Secretary of State for Defence when he expects to notify the Dartmoor national park committee of his proposals to replace buildings at the Willsworthy shooting range.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces (Mr. Roger Freeman)

We shall consult the committee immediately should we decide that we wish to proceed with the replacement of Willsworthy camp. At present we are still considering the proposal.

Sir Peter Mills

I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Does he agree that it would be wrong to build a barracks on Dartmoor? It is not essential to build a barracks there. The troops can be bussed to the moor quite easily. I am not opposed to the Royal Artillery being in the area; it is simply that it seems quite wrong to build a barracks on Dartmoor.

Mr. Freeman

I understand my hon. Friend's concern. The Army has been on Dartmoor for almost 100 years. We are talking about the replacement not of barracks but of temporary accommodation. Because I understand my hon. Friend's concern, I look forward to visiting Dartmoor in September. I hope that I can find a convenient date to go there with him.

Mr. Steen

I think that the House owes a deep debt of gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Sir P. Mills), whose love of Dartmoor is well known. It is not just a question of a few shacks on Dartmoor. I am told that it will be a multi-storey, mixed sex barracks. It will be two or three miles within the Dartmoor national park. In view of the fact that the Ministry of Defence is exempt from planning consent, it is quite wrong for the Minister to collude and allow the Ministry to destroy the boundaries of the national park by building a barracks in the way proposed.

Mr. Freeman

I think that my hon. Friend knows a lot more about the plans than I do. No plans have been finalised. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Sir P. Mills), I am undertaking to go to Dartmoor in September to look at that site and all possible sites.

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