IT WILL be announced in the summer whether or not RAF Lyneham will be home to thousands of returning soldiers from Germany.

Armed Forces Minister Nick Harvey insisted no decision had been made but said accepted Lyneham in a “strong position” and the Government would make an announcement before Parliament breaks for its summer recess.

North Wiltshire MP James Gray wants the returning personnel to be based at the RAF base, due for closure in 2012.

Yesterday he lobbied government over the suitability of the base in a special 90 minutes Commons debate.

Mr Harvey warned against making rush decisions but accepted local communities were anxious over what would happen to the base.

He said: “We must look beyond the local considerations, base by base, to the wider defence picture.

“We need to make the best use of our existing assets in the UK.

“I do not want to mislead Wiltshire Members into thinking that there is necessarily a future defence use for Lyneham at the moment-it is too soon to say that, because there is still a lot of work to do. In the mean time, we continue to make plans for the disposal of Lyneham.

“We shall, however, as I have said, try to put all the local communities out of their agony as soon as we can."

Despite appearing to give no assurances, Mr Harvey continued: “Mr Gray has made a strong case on why Lyneham would be a good base for the Army. Many of his arguments have a great deal of merit.

“He mentioned the proximity to other Army units in Wiltshire and to Salisbury plain, and those are good arguments, as well as reasons why Lyneham is in quite a strong position as we look at the different bases.”

The North Wilts MP handed government a dossier detailing why the base was ideal.

Mr Gray said: “We have fought long and hard against the suggestion that the Hercules fleet should be moved to Brize Norton.

“I continue to believe that that is the wrong decision, but sadly it was taken too long ago to be reversed and we have now come to accept the reality that the RAF will leave.

“Whatever happens to RAF Lyneham when the RAF leaves, we must re-use the site swiftly and cleanly. We must not allow Defence Estates to sit on it, or the vandals to move in. We must find a quick and speedy solution. After all, the local economy depends to a significant degree on the base.

“Something like 3,400 jobs are directly or indirectly dependent on it, according to a recent survey by Wiltshire council. About £90 million within the local economy comes from Lyneham. If the site were to be left vacant and nothing were to happen there it would be a disaster for the local economy.

“By far the strongest sense of what one might call local unanimity is on the point that when the RAF leaves later this year we would like the Army to return to the site.”

Mr Harvey said he would ‘give full consideration’ to what the dossier contained before a decision was taken.