The well-loved café ‘Chocks Away’ at Tollerton Airfield closed its doors for the last time on Saturday, in preparation for the airfield being closed on 6 June. Vistry Group developers plan to turn the site into a large-scale housing development. But the campaigners who had gathered to protest this development were adamant that the café closing was not the ‘beginning of the end’ so much as the ‘end of the beginning’.
Chocks Away has served the local community for 13 years. The owner, Alison Holt, criticised Vistry Homes for putting pressure on businesses to close when planning permission for their housing still has not been granted. She posted on social media: “Our penultimate day was filled with an array of lovely customers, all expressing their sadness at losing us and confusion as to why Vistry have taken their decision to close a thriving airfield when no planning permission has been granted.”
To encourage support for the significant visible, family-filled protest on Saturday 10 May, Holt continued: “We can’t believe we’re being forced to close. Vistry homes have destroyed our café and want to destroy the airfield, there is a protest at 11 today to let them know we will not be silenced even though they have taken this abhorrent decision to shut the airfield on June 6th.”
D-Day for Tollerton Airfield
The 81st celebration of D-Day on 6 June emphasises the military contribution for Tollerton Airfield. The local history site, ‘Tollerton Village History’ chronicles in detail the eye-witness records and other public records that give a comprehensive picture of how Tollerton Airfield, or RAF Tollerton, was involved in World War Two.
“During World War 2 Tollerton residents would have seen dramatic changes in and around the village with increased activity at the airfield and the arrival of many troops. The airport was requisitioned by the Air Ministry on 3 September 1939 and became RAF Tollerton, where pilots were trained and damaged aircraft repaired.
“The CAG & the RAFVR were disbanded and the aerodrome became known as Tollerton Airfield, Nottingham Airport or RAF Tollerton. The site was developed into a major centre for the assembly, modification, overhaul and repair of military aircraft.”
The site also gathers public information that notes where the legacy contamination of the site comes from. One of the chief concerns for campaigners is this level of contamination from scrapped aircraft, which were burned around the perimeter of the airfield. Radium pollution has already been identified by Rushcliffe Borough Council and campaigners believe that this comes from the ‘glow-in-the-dark’ dials from the Lancaster aircraft burned and buried at Tollerton Airfield.
“At the end of the war many aeroplanes were cut up for scrap and Tollerton specialised in the break-up of Lancasters. At one time the south westerly corner of the airfield was one huge graveyard of destroyed Lancasters. Tollerton was finally derequisitioned by the Air Ministry in 1960.”
What happened to hundreds of Lancaster bombers?
Central Bylines contacted the Ministry of Defence to confirm the number of aircraft which were dismantled and destroyed on the Tollerton Airfield site. The MOD’s response, however, seemed to suggest that private companies were to be held accountable rather than the Ministry.
“Firstly, although we do indeed hold details on every single aircraft that served in the RAF during the Second World War, recorded on the Air Ministry Form 78 (Aircraft Movement Card), these details are limited.
“For those disposed of post-war, the last line is generally ‘s.o.c.’ (‘Struck off charge’ – literally struck off the RAF/Air Ministry’s books) with the date. Sometimes it will record which unit the aircraft was sent to for this process, and very occasionally it will record the private company that the aircraft was sold to for scrapping. However, the approach taken was far from uniform, and even if we were to go through all 7,000-odd Lancaster F.78s we would not be able to come up with a list of those that might have ended up at Tollerton.”
The MoD appeared to distance itself from the scrappage responsibility of wartime aircraft stating: “The bulk of the scrapping work conducted after the war was done so by private companies, not the RAF. Although a small number of RAF Repair and Salvage units existed, which during the war would have attended to either crashed aircraft or those deemed beyond economical repair, to salvage any parts that could be re-used and reduce the rest to scrap, these could not cope with the mass de-armament of the RAF from 1946 onwards. Private companies at sites such as Tollerton did the bulk of the work, and their records are unlikely to survive unless either they or their successor companies still exist, or unless by some lucky chance the records have been donated to a local archive somewhere. Once the airframe was struck off charge, the RAF had no further part in the process.”
Confusingly, their statement also appeared to suggest that RAF Tollerton was not an RAF site in its own right:
“During the time period in question Tollerton was not an RAF site. It had been used as a training facility during the war, but for most of its existence in the RAF was a ‘satellite’ field to RAF Newton. Today, the Second World War-period records that survive have long since been processed under the Public Records Act and either destroyed (c.95%) or released (c.5%) into The National Archives (TNA) or other archives where they are accessible to the public.”
Therefore, for any records from the Second World War period that have not yet been destroyed, they are either too difficult to locate, or are in the hands of private companies. This raises important questions about the responsibility now required for cleaning up the land from contaminants following war time use. And this in turn creates difficulties for campaigners fighting to ensure that the land is safe.
‘Our fight doesn’t end here’
Back at the protest, one of lead campaigners, Sarah Deacon, told Central Bylines: “Today was truly a testament to how well-loved Chocks Away is, and what an asset it is to our local community. To see so many people come and support Alison on her last day of trading was so touching- and just shows how many lives Chocks Away has been part of.”
She continued: “Our fight doesn’t end here – even though Chocks Away has been forced out of business we will not give up on saving the airfield. If Vistry thinks we will give up now, they’ve got another think coming. Next move for us is a visit to London, to Vistry’s AGM – we need Vistry shareholders to be informed about the risks that Vistry have taken in buying Nottingham City Airport to build on, and the whole swathe of unexpected costs that may arise from a site with this history.”
The Vistry Group may now be evaluating sites carefully after “understated” build costs last year led to it announcing a second profit warning. Unexpected clean-up costs associated with legacy contamination may be enough to concern Vistry shareholders to put pressure on decision makers within the group.
