§ 28. Mr. Ridleyasked the Secretary of State for Defence, in view of the incidence of low flying by RAF aircraft over North 178W Gloucestershire, if he will now select another area for this training.
§ Mr. JohnEssential low-flying training is distributed widely throughout the United Kingdom and to reduce the activity in one area would only add to the disturbance elsewhere. However, there has been a recent increase in low-level training over North Gloucestershire partly for seasonal reasons and partly because of increased training activity by operational aircraft. I am reviewing this programme to see if ways can be found of alleviating the nuisance without imposing unacceptable operational penalties.