Sir Peter Viggers MP

House of Commons

London SW1A 0AA

Tel. 020 7219 5081

PRESS  RELEASE

Browndown Camp

The Under-Secretary of State for Defence has informed me that Browndown Camp is indeed to be closed, confirming the suspicions which led me earlier to put down a Parliamentary Question.  The Minister explains that Browndown and other sites which are to be closed "are not used for pre deployment training….. and there is capacity elsewhere on the training estate". 

Sir Peter Viggers, Member of Parliament for Gosport, said today:

"This is short-term thinking of the most blinkered kind.  Browndown Camp is widely used by the Territorial Army and it is particularly suitable for cadet training.  The accommodation, the classroom facilities and the open training area near the sea all make it ideally suitable for cadet training".

"Cadets are a very important part of the recruiting process to the Armed Forces.  About a quarter of all cadets go on to join the Armed Forces and similarly about a quarter of those in the Armed Forces have graduated through the cadet system".

"The Government is obsessed with immediate pre-deployment training.  It is taking no account whatever of the longer-term needs of the Armed Forces in terms of recruitment and indeed the ability to expand in times of emergency.

"This is a very bad move and I am hopeful that an incoming Conservative Government will review it and reverse it".

24 November 2009

Comment:  This is another example of this government's determination to disenfranchise Gosport. The Browndown facilities are essential in the drive to give youngsters in Gosport means of identifying themselves with the military heritage of the town and give them the grounding in self worth and social skills necessary to become good citizens.

So far they have taken away from Gosport the most important health care facility and the last military hospital in the UK. The strength at HMS Sultan has been drastically reduced and no longer can the town's economy rely on the money that was spent by naval personnell.

The submarine base at HMS Dolfin is no more and so many civilian jobs have been lost to the drive to asset strip the south of the country and move them to the Labour heartlands.

Conclusion, Gosport can only benefit from a change of Government.

RPA