scifisam said:
Why have they decommissioned it? It's not as if the threat has gone.
As pogofish said, PERIPHERAL (BURLINGTON) was extremely expensive to maintain. The 2004 MOD estimate for maintaining the minimum safety standards at the site were £500K per annum.
And recently declassified Cabinet Office documents reveal that its security had been compromised a very long time ago.
As early as 1967 the 'Spies For Peace' had produced and distributed a pamphlet which alerted the UK public that the Central Government wartime HQ was located in the Corsham Quarries (see below).
Strangely, the revelation that the Top Secret Government bolt hole was located just outside of Bath didn't ruffle too many feathers in Government.
It has become apparent that this lack of concern was no doubt due to the fact that CHANTICLEER (the codename had changed) was no longer to be used primarily as the main Central Government HQ. Instead of accommodating 3,750 Whitehall staff prior to attack, it would now be operated covertly by only 250 staff. The rest of Central Government were to be dispersed across the UK in the form of PYTHON Groups. These would ride out any attack and only make their way to CHANTICLEER 30 days post-strike.
To a large extent, from 1968 onwards Site 3 at Corsham was more of a decoy.
Plans were drawn up for this facility to be covertly upgraded in 1981/82, but these were not fully put into action. A later 1989 upgrade was planned but not implemented (at least, not in Site 3).
Laclustre
