A group of Wiltshire business people have got together in a bid to keep RAF Lyneham open by bringing in the army.

Staff at the base are scheduled to move to Brize Norton in Oxfordshire in 2012 with the last flight due to leave next year.

Towns in North Wiltshire like Wootton Bassett, Malmesbury and Calne as well as Lyneham are expected to feel the economic ill wind when the base shuts.

The consortium of business people think they have the answer by using Lyneham as a super base for the armed forces.

“Lyneham as an RAF base will definitely close,” said Eddy Shah, the businessman who runs the Wilthsire Golf and Country Club in Wootton Bassett and who is leading the consortium.

“The area around the base is going to suffer economically with estimates of up to 50 per cent in a loss of trade for our towns that could turn this area into economic wasteland.

“This will seriously affect all our lives.”

The consortium have put forward a radical solution to the Lyneham problem which involves bringing home the British Army from Germany 15 years earlier than expected. The cost of keeping the army in Germany is £250m a year.

Mr Shah said: “The army wants to merge some of its smaller bases in Wiltshire. What better place for them to come to than Lyneham?

“The base is big enough to take the amalgamation and the space for the troops returning from Germany.

“The army is due to leave Germany in 2030. Why not get the army home sooner?

“It will certainly save more money for the country.

“Doing this makes economic and geographic sense – and it saves our towns.”

Mr Shah said that people wanting to support the Save Lyneham campaign should write to North Wiltshire MP James Gray.

The MP has already raised the closure issue with Prime Minister David Cameron and said recently the signs were not promising in keeping the RAF at the base.

Lyneham’s fate will be decided in the Government's Strategic Defence Review to be published in October or November but Mr Gray said he would continue campaigning to keep the Hercules fleet at RAF Lyneham in his constituency for as long as he could.

Mr Gray said it was vital the site was occupied, adding. “What I don’t want to happen is for the site to be left vacant like the base at Wroughton. That would be a disaster.”

“We need to have our plan in place before the defence review,” said Mr Shah.

Wootton Bassett Chamber of Commerce is behind any campaign to keep Lyneham open.

Suzanne Gore, the vice president of the chamber, said Wootton Bassett had a long history with the military.

“We’ve had the army around us for years and we are even closer now with the repatriations.

“I think the people of Wootton Bassett would welcome an army camp at Lyneham.

“This is an idea which is worth exploring.”