MP James Gray has spoken of his disbelief that sections of the ex-RAF Lyneham Hercules fleet have been moved from Brize Norton because there is no space at the base.

The fleet of Hercs was moved to Brize, in Oxfordshire, last year, as the base prepares for closure after more than 70 years in the north Wiltshire village.

But a number of the aircraft have been moved to private firm Marshalls of Cambridge Airport because of a lack of hangar space at Brize.

The MoD was also paying £180 a night for two engineers to stay at nearby hotels while they maintained the aircraft.

Mr Gray, MP for North Wiltshire, campaigned strongly for years to stop the Ministry of Defence closing the Wiltshire base.

One of his main concerns about the closure of Lyneham was that space would be thin on the ground at Brize. And now it appears his fears were valid.

Mr Gray told the Gazette and Herald: “They are in the process of rebuilding the hangars at Brize Norton and frankly the fleet are just not there.

“This is something I warned them about and something I have been banging on about for six years. There is no space at Brize Norton for everything they are trying to cram in there.

“It is a bit of a case of ‘I told you so’, I am afraid.”

Mr Gray has raised the issue a number of times in the House of Commons this month.

In one exchange with Peter Luff, minister for defence equipment, support and technology, he asked about the numbers of Hercs at Brize.

Mr Luff said, as of June 15, there were just three of 32 in the fleet at the base, while six were on operations. That left 17 being stored elsewhere, including eight at Cambridge.

Lyneham is due to close entirely in the coming months and a new tri-forces training base is due to open by 2015.

Mr Gray denied the fleet had been sent to Cambridge to save the MoD the embarrassment of returning them to Lyneham.

He said: “There is nothing we can do about it now. It has nothing to do with politics.

“Even if they wanted to move the fleet back to Lyneham they wouldn’t be able to. It is not that easy.

“The runway has been downgraded. All the offices and IT have been removed. It has all been closed.

“We cannot reopen it and, to be honest, we have been through that phase and said goodbye to the RAF.

“The new technical training college will be fantastic for the area with very high quality facilities. What is proposed will be great and what we need to do now is to crack on and encourage it to work.”

Lyneham councillor Allison Bucknell was equally perplexed at the move.

She said: “I didn’t see the rationale of moving the base in the first place.

“It is very disappointing that the planning could not have been done better.

“I wonder how we actually manage to logistically fight battles when we somehow seem to struggle to get things right in our own back yard.”

RAF Brize Norton was unavailable for comment yesterday.