Even though the SDSR promises that it “will be used by units returning from Germany or
retained for other purposes,” the loss of RAF Kinloss will still be a body blow to Moray. For years, it has sustained hundreds of airforce families in Elgin, Forres and Nairn – mine amongst them.
And I can picture the bakeries, shops and other small businesses that will be hit by losing so many clientele. About 6,000 jobs depend on the RAF up there: not just Kinloss but Lossiemouth, 15
miles away, whose future also looks bleak. Jet fuel for the Tornados in Lossie is sent via Inverness harbour, so it would mean job losses there.
The downgrading of Kinloss, of course, means the end of Nimrods. This will likely mean hundreds of redundancies: you can perhaps retrain a pilot, but it’s pretty difficult to redeploy all these air electronics engineers who looked after the Nimrod – unless you put them on to helicopters.
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