Demolition, Who decided when and how much??

I have walked around loads of airfields in my area, (Lincs/Notts). What i often wonder is how come some airfields that have been closed for years still have loads of stuff left to find, buildings etc, yet others that are only recently closed have virtually nothing left. Same thought applies to some airfields that were closed at around the same time. Dunholme lodge, virtually nothing. Ingham, loads, if you know where to look. Who decided what should be destroyed? and did they have any kind of order? any ideas anyone!

Hornet pm sent mate.

I reckon much of this will be down to whoever owns the land.

Case in point, Saltby, I used to help a mate who farmed at the edge of teh airfield. In the mid 70,s much still remained, but as time passed the local estate started selling off "hardcore rights" and a lot of the taxiways and roads vanished, along with a lot of buildings (2 watch offices to name but 2) probably to make the land look tidy, maybe also to remove potential for travellers moving in, ths list goes on! . I think much is based on simple economics if there is a use for a building it will get used, or if not it mayjust get cleared away and the rubble reused as hard core somewhere.

A lot of hardcore for the duelling of the A1 in Lincolnshire came from airfields.

Once at Riccall with CDP we got talking to the farmer who owns the former communal site, loads of it left. According to him once the land was returned to the former owners they had the choice to have the buildings demolished or left in situ. His dad chose to leave them standing as potential farm buildings. I suppose other landowners could have chose the former?

We've no idea how true this is for every site of course but could be an explanation?

dont alot of the building contain asbestos in the roofing materials and walls. and like moist things dont it come down to money and access to the places for demolition

thanks rich

Its down to the land owner i think myself and probably the cost of demolition unless its hardcore where they will get something back for it.

Hardcore is cheap, but expensive to move around. If there was a big local demand any available source would have been exploited.

But there must have been a categorisation. Some airfields were quite quickly stripped back and returned to agriculture, but some of the East Anglian runways had caveats attached to future use. There are several large chicken and turkey farms built on old runways in Norfolk and Suffolk. When they were first built they weren't allowed foundations. In theory there was nothing about these structures that couldn't be scraped off the surface with a bulldozer.

According to 'Airfields of the Eighth, Then & Now', the reclamation company St. Ives Sand & Gravel virtually had the monopoly on ripping up umpteen runways, peri tracks etc., around East Anglia in the seventies and eighties. and they didn't hang about.

And also in that book it states that a lot of the hardcore for the airfields came from bombed out buildings in the east end of London.