Gillian's Column of the Week

A Day in Thorney Island: Commitment to Defence and Conservation

GILLIAN KEEGAN MP

As it’s summer recess, it was a novelty to be able to deliver the morning media round from Chichester last Tuesday, when we announced 15 new free schools to be opening in the most disadvantaged areas across the country.

After showing Channel 4 and Good Morning Britain around the city centre, it was straight off to Thorney Island for a jam-packed visit around the barracks.

Thorney Island has a long military history, apparently dating back to an RAF crash on the island, almost a century ago. Responding investigators are said to have remarked at the island’s potential back in 1933, recommending the site as a potential future airfield. Just five years later, Thorney Island RAF Station was commissioned. Nowadays, it’s the Army that operate from the site, and it was Wing Commander Suzanne Mitchel, Major Leon Young and Sergeant Simon Clark from Baker Barracks who met me for a visit of the 12th and 16th Royal Artillery regiments stationed there.

Since Putin’s invasion last year, the regiments have been right at the centre of our military assistance in Ukraine, lending their expertise and cutting-edge ground-based air defence (or ‘GBAD’) equipment to our allies on the front lines. It’s critical, specialist work and it was really interesting to experience some of the training these amazing men and women undergo to ensure they can keep us, and our allies, safe.

Gillian Keegan met with service personnel from across Baker Barracks last week.

Thorney Island is also closely involved in some of our most important environmental efforts, as a haven for nearby wildlife and as part of the Chichester Harbour Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). With the help of the Chichester Harbour Conservancy and RSPB, the site continues to provide the perfect home for a variety of rare birdlife, from visiting brent geese, to skylarks and lapwings - make your way south around the island’s perimeter footpath, and you might even catch sight of an osprey passing through. The views here are really something special, and it’s brilliant to see our groups working together to preserve the island for many generations to come.