Speed bumps scupper repatriation vigils
By Alex Stevenson
Spontaneous repatriation ceremonies like those seen in Wootton Bassett will not be repeated from this autumn, ministers have made clear.
Fallen service personnel are to be repatriated to RAF Brize Norton, rather than RAF Lyneham, from this September, meaning the route of the cortege to Oxford will no longer pass through the small Wiltshire village.
Instead the RAF is spending £3.2 million on a new repatriation centre at RAF Brize Norton, giving families of the bereaved "a very good view of what is happening when the aircraft land", defence minister Andrew Robathan told the Commons.
The cortege will not travel through a similar village. Instead Oxfordshire county council is building a memorial garden "with a great deal of car parking", Mr Robathan said.
Conservative MP Mark Pawsey raised the concerns of a constituent who believed it was important for the British public to be able to continue to pay their respects to fallen personnel.
And Labour MP Paul Flynn asked: "Should not the people of Brize Norton and the surrounding areas have the right to express the grief of the nation, in order that we are all reminded of the true cost of war?"
Mr Robathan said the route would not pass through the village of Carterton on its way to Oxford because its streets "are very narrow for a modern village" and because it has "speed bumps which are not suitable for corteges". It will pass through the village of Brize Norton, however.
Tory MP James Gray supported the government's position, arguing that it would be better not to repeat the scenes of Wootton Bassett.
He suggested that "it might not be possible, nor indeed quite right, to seek to replicate the Wootton Bassett effect elsewhere, as that was a chapter in our history".
Mr Robathan replied: "I think people will come to realise that this is a different situation, and that the RAF, Oxfordshire county council and the police are doing the right thing for the bereaved and the servicemen who have been killed."
Wootton Bassett is to change its name to Royal Wootton Bassett later this year, in a move acknowledging the impromptu respectful vigils its inhabitants have held every time a fallen British soldier passes through.
This is the first time a town has been honoured in this way for political purposes. Royal Leamington Spa and Royal Tunbridge Wells received the honour in 1838 and 1909 because of their antiquity and royal patronage of their facilities.
