Published on Mon Aug 29 17:06:11 BST 2011
HISTORIC former airmen’s quarters at RAF Bicester are set to be converted into new homes after plans were approved by Cherwell District Council.
Developers City Country say they will now start restoring the site, which contains more than 20 Grade II-listed buildings.
Once used by Defence Equipment Support, the site in Caversfield, across the road from the RAF Bicester airfield, has kept many of its key features.
City Country director Helen Moore thanked Caversfield Parish Council, the Air Training Corps, and the Campaign to Protect Rural England for their support.
She added: “We will now immediately set about the challenging but rewarding task of restoring this nationally-important site that has played such an important role in our military history, to realise our vision and to deliver the long-term and sustainable future that it deserves.”
Buildings on site date from the 1920s and ‘30s, and include the officers’ mess and living quarters, the barrack blocks, ration stores, and decontamination chambers.
The leafy development of just under 200 apartments and houses has been named The Garden Quarter.
English Heritage has described RAF Bicester as the best-preserved bomber station built as part of Sir Hugh Trenchard’s Home Defence Expansion Scheme in the 1920s.
Two new entrances will be created on Skimmingdish Lane as part of the plans.