GCHQ's exploding doughnut threatens to ooze into innocent field GCHQ's £330m headquarters in Gloucestershire, which was built in 2003, is already inadequate for the jam-packed Doughnut's workers – leading the agency to apply for planning permission to build more offices on its car park. The new building would be located on GCHQ's existing site, and its 4,500m2 will be spread across "a …
The Pre-fabs that were built after WW2 were only temporary. Yet how many are still lived in today?
So Mr GCHQ, why don't you say in what 5-year plans these will be demolished? Perhaps you really mean the 2075-2080 version?
As for the car parling. Why can't this temporary building be built on stilts over the car park? Then you get to keep the existing spaces AND hide all those employee cars from the ever present Russian/Chinese/Indian spy satellites.
Presumably they are doing this merely to expand the car-park. After protracted rounds of negotiation with the council, they will mutually agree to not build the eyesore building, but keep the carpark proposal. Job done.
Typical planning strategy - put in for something outrageous, then "back-down" and agree to build what you wanted to in the first place, with all the local NIMBYs saying "phew, well at least it's not a <PET PEEVE>".
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In the middle of the countryside? It's in the middle of housing estate, next to a retail park. Couldn't be in a more English location, although there is a deeply suspicious Whole Foods Market next door, full of chaps speaking into their coat cuffs with 'Murican accents. Probably.
No, it's known as Princess Elizabeth Way and nobody minds too much if it's inhabitants are collateral damage to an attack on the doughnut. Should've built it closer to Hesters Way but I suspect cost of replacing the windows every 5 minutes would have been prohibitive.
Thereby demonstrating either incredible ineptitude in the arts of secrecy or incredible cunning in the same.
Nobody really bothers trying to keep the exterior of secret facilities secret any more - complete waste of time with modern reconnaissance technology and the length of time these facilities are supposed to remain secure. However against this trend some organisations do still try to conceal the location of their key sites; National Grid's national control centre being one example, about a mile away from me. We all know where and what it is, guys!
It's in the middle of housing estate, next to a retail park. Couldn't be in a more English location
Yes, putting the guys with the uber high resolution cameras and listening gear right next to a ladies college has zero potential for fun.
Hi GCHQ - Please don't tell my wife about my browsing habits. She has no idea I want to be a monk.
Given the huge quantities of certain types of media available on the Internet, I would have thought that this sort of voyeurism was almost dead. Still, it's an idea if anyone wants to film a sequel to Confessions of a Window-Washer.
Or also realistically, if innovative for the UK:
Insist that they come to work on electric bikes. The lower top speed than a car is balanced by the ability to use bike paths and keep moving past vehicles queued as the one in front turns right.
There are some very sweet electric bikes out there. They're very popular in China, with (I think) 50% of last years bike sales being electric.
I'm extremely glad it isn't underground as the enormous donut is unmissable in any weather day or night, and makes landing on runway 27 at Staverton (Gloucestershire) Airport easy as can be. I learnt to fly there and have done hundreds of circuits directly over it, getting a view just like in the photo.
[ ] - Fill in the middle bit, maybe even build a tower (also a good place to put aerials). James Bond fans may suggest a rocket, but they're just being silly, villains have moved on.
[ ] - Go underground. If Knightsbridge residents can, so can you.
[ ] - Add a floor to the doughnut. A topping floor, so to speak. Or spinklers.
[ ] - Provide free buses to work. Will cost less too, and is greener.
[ ] - Outsource the work. The NSA building *is* bigger..
[ ] - Spy less. No? Oh well, it was worth a try.
Yes, I'm happy to remain anonymous, thank you.
Yes, I'm happy with the appearance of being anonymous, thank you.
It was more in line with the tongue-in-cheek of the rest of the post because yes, you are correct, El Reg has to follow the law just as much as the rest of us. If served with warrant, anonymous no longer is.
If they were worth their salt they'd have built the three storeys as basement levels without telling anyone ... My colleague's parents report that it's getting more difficult to walk around the estate ... they thought it was age but perhaps it's inclines made from trouser-leg-sized piles of soil nonchalantly kicked under the pavements?
Anyone who has any experience of relocations knows that you always need a space that is at least 20% bigger than you think.
The head honchos and project managers never look forward.
The Doughnut has a total floor area of 140,000 square metres and this extension is 4,500square metres, so chances are that this won't be big enough either. Watch this space!
Might as well watch them, since they're watching you!
D
you do realise this is just a diversion while they build a new HQ elsewhere???
Plenty of old airfields around ripe for redevelopment......whats happening at Lyneham now the centralised MOD engineering school concept has been scrapped? Lyneham isn't very far away from Cheltenham......and its a big secret site looking for a use
Methinks you might be onto something there. Lyneham that's the one just south of Junction 16 on the M4 right? There's one north of that where they hold the airshows (Fairfield or something?) and every time I was on an Orange call it dropped at a point just before junction 16 on the M4.
Since I had a GIS specialist in the house, I asked him to give me a line between the two airbases. That line crossed the M4 at the point where my signal ALWAYS dropped.
That was in 2000.
Given the publications out there, the laws in place and the treaties agreed, we need to get these guys to move their envelope of secrecy well, well back from where it is.
They won't do that, of course, because then they'll have to justify their drain on the tax payer.
What a sad state of affairs.
How long are we going to let this go on for?
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