ANNEX A TO
MEN/30/3/ORG
DATED 12 AUGUST 1998
1. RAF Menwith Hill, located approximately 9 miles west of Harrogate and occupying about one square mile of moorland, is a Crown freehold site owned by the Ministry of Defence. It is a communications facility which forms part of a worldwide defence communications network providing intelligence support which underpins UK, US and NATO interests. The mission has the full knowledge and consent of the UK Government and is regarded as being of the highest importance to this Country’s defence strategy. In addition to the main communications task, a recent decision has been taken to site the European Relay Ground Station for the new Space Based Infra Red System [SBIRS] at RAF Menwith Hill. This is part of a world-wide satellite based system that will provide early identification of ballistic missile launches.
2. Approximately 1800 personnel work at RAF Menwith Hill, with roughly one third being UK citizens, which includes a significant GCHQ presence. A third of the US personnel are military with representation from all four services [Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps]. A totally integrated structure operates at the site with personnel from both countries employed at all levels.
3. Menwith Hill has been a target for protester activity for more than 15 years but since the late 1980s the volume of activity has grown and intensified. In order to control the activities of the protesters, MOD has reinforced its physical security measures and adopted a legal strategy involving prosecution of protesters for criminal damage when it was appropriate, seeking injunctions to prevent access by the most frequent trespassers and promulgating new, more effective Byelaws. These measures have been successful up to a point but protester activity continues with key activists regularly breaking their injunctions not to enter the site. There has also been a change in tactics with protesters entering the site equipped with bolt cutters and other implements, forcing entry into the radomes and damaging the equipment within which is a matter of serious disquiet to both the US and UK Governments. MOD has also been criticized in the Courts, most recently by His Honour Judge Crabtree at York on 9th September 1997, for failing to erect fencing to protect the site. The topography of the site has meant that providing effective physical security is a difficult task and although the inner operations compound is prtoected by a range of measures including barriers, fences and CCTV, the perimeter is secured only by dry stone walls, hedgerows and low fencing.
4. In addition to the activities of the protesters, the Station also has to guard against other threats including terrorist activity. The attention paid to Menwith Hill, including circulation of site details on the Internet, and misleading stories about its functions, all increase its vulnerability and susceptibility to attack. HMG and the US Authorities are also very sensitive to the need to protect personnel against perceived soft targets. The Khobar Towers bombing and the recent outrages in Tanzania and Kenya are vivid examples of the need to provide effective security for US personnel in what might otherwise be considered low risk locations.
5. These threats to the security of the site has caused MOD to review its security arrangements and it has agreed, in conjunction with the US Authorities, that a security fence extending around the perimeter of the site is required to provide protection for the personnel employed at the site and the installations established there.