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Royal Air Force Newton or more simply RAF Newton is a former Royal Air Force station located east of Nottingham, Nottinghamshire and south west of Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, England. It was used briefly as a bomber base for squadrons to re-equip after the Battle of France and then as a flying training school during the Second World War and beyond until 2000.
Newton then became a training base, and for the next five years between July 1941 and December 1946 No. 16 (Polish) Service Flying Training School provided basic and advanced training for Polish airmen serving with the RAF, using RAF Tollerton as a satellite landing ground.
The following units were posted to Newton during this time:
Later the station became the home of the RAF School of Education, who moved from RAF Upwood in 1972, and the RAF Police Training School, who moved from RAF Debden in 1974 bringing their gate guardian – a Hawker Hunter F1, WT694 (now at Caernarfon Air World) – with them. Both of these units transferred to RAF Halton in the 1990s.
The station has been home to the Headquarters Air Cadets (HQAC) (which included the Air Training Corps, and the RAF Sections of the Combined Cadet Force) which later moved to RAF Cranwell in 1995, the same year, the RAF Police Dog School based there since 1975 was amalgamated with the RAVC to form the Defence Animal Centre (DAC) at Melton Mowbray.
The station badge featured the Polish Eagle holding a flaming torch in each talon with the motto "Docemus et Discimus" which translates as "We teach and we learn", reflecting the Polish training role in the Second World War.
The station had also become the home of the newly formed Nottingham University College Air Squadron in 1941, providing newly trained pilots for the RAF. During the 1960s Newton was home to an Air Experience Flight of de Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk aircraft which were used by local squadrons of the Air Training Corps and cadets of the RAF Sections of the Combined Cadet Force. The East Midlands University Air Squadron continued flying at Newton, with Scottish Aviation Bulldog aircraft, until moving its flying activities to RAF Cranwell in 2001. In the latter years, civilian-operated Slingsby Fireflies were also based at Newton for basic military training on behalf of RAF Cranwell.
In June 1995, as part of changes to RAF ground training the MOD announced the relocation of Headquarters Air Cadets from RAF Newton to RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire and the reduction of Newton to an enclave for the East Midlands Universities Air Squadron (EMUAS) and No. 7 Air Experience Flight. The airfield was also used by the Joint Elementary Flying Training School and by the British Army's 73 Engineer Regiment (Volunteers) for vehicle storage.
In March 2000 it was announced that RAF Newton would be disposed of. The MOD considered that Newton was under-utilised and relatively costly to operate, concluding that disposal would offer substantial cost savings.
Outside the former RAF Station main gate, the old NAAFI building is home to 1936 (Newton) Squadron of the Air Training Corps, which is currently commanded by Flt Lt David Francis RAFAC, thus creating continued RAF presence to the village since its initial formation during the early years of the Second World War.
The abandoned houses on the base were used to film scenes from the film This is England." Films made in Nottingham ". Thisisnottingham.co.uk. (29 November 2008). Retrieved on 6 April 2009. It has also been used for the television series Robot Wars during the 6th series on the BBC and after it transferred to the commercial UK channel Five.Dilley, Ryan (15 July 2002). " Village of the Damned". BBC Online. Retrieved on 6 April 2009.
The site is located within Nottingham's Green Belt.
Proposals for building a large number of homes on-site are well developed with at least 550 earmarked for the former base site.
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