Leader: Tinker, tailor, soldier … housebuilder

Published on Tuesday 24 January 2012 12:13

HOME owners in the proposed model village of New Esk, close to the Aberdeenshire-Angus border, should not be surprised if their radio reception has an occasional strange crackle: that may be the sound of deepest secrets.

For 37 years, the former RAF Edzell station was a top- secret part of America’s Cold War after it was taken over as a base by the US navy. It became a critical component of Nato’s spy network, tracking the movement of Soviet ships and submarines until 1997. Now the family business that owns the base has submitted a £250 million plan to establish a new village of 1,000 homes.

It was hard to imagine back in the 1960s there would ever by an end to the Cold War and the heavy and relentless surveillance machinery it demanded, still less that such a top security base would be converted into a village. The rolling Mearns countryside may be unchanging. But the geopolitical order has undergone a convulsion since then, as has the technology of information-gathering. For all the rebranding of developers and the dramatic change of use envisaged, New Esk will always be RAF Edzell, and its location forever remembered as the place of deepest secrets. In the summer evenings when the air is still, the flicker on the TV screen may be more than passing interference.

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