The many local home owners who benefited from increased values as well as more peaceful lives when Lyneham ceased to be a major centre for military activity should be warned.

Real affection for our forces made us sentimental about the heroes, but the MoD’s plan to have up to six Jaguar fighters based here, all taxiing with their high-pitched engines screaming for two periods of 1.5 hours each day of training, may make us prick up our ears.

Current planning application 13/01522 specifies just that, also the “running up” of engines in the proposed engineering school. It also specifies live ammunition firing on the base. According to the MoD, the noise from that facility alone could reach 156dB. In the same document it is noted that 140dB is the noise generated by a moon launch.

Some training activities will, they admit, be continuous and at night.

A few of us attended Lyneham earlier this year where we specifically asked about noise levels.

We were told a proper assessment had been done. We were misled. The noise assessment equipment they now confess was not operating properly, so one site had no data, the rest only worked for two-and-a-half days.

The data had to be presented using computer simulation, but the simulation models stop at 8kHz, while the human ear hears sounds up to 20kHz. The models are invalid; the Jaguar jets alone generate most of their noise audible to the human ear above 8kHz. The planning document itself notes that the noise will often exceed World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines. I hesitate to mention the effect of such extreme noise on horses, cats, dogs and other animals.

The plans should not proceed without a proper Environmental Impact Assessment. It should not be beyond the ability of the MoD to meet their actual legal requirement to provide proper information about consulting our local authority, and, if need be, to keep unacceptable noisy activities away from the peaceful “University of Defence” (which we were promised at the outset) to Salisbury Plain.

Name and address supplied.