Site Records

Site Name: RAF Portreath - Reporting Post within the UK Surveillance and Control System (UK ASACS)

Portreath
Tolticken Hill
Cornwall
OS Grid Ref: SW673455

Sub Brit site visit 2nd March 2007

DOWNGRADING
Following the end of the cold war and the reduced expectation of an air attack on the UK RAF Portreath was downgraded to a remote radar head parented by RAF St. Mawgan.

RAF Portreath is still operational as a Reporting Post with a remote radar head within the UK Surveillance and Control System (UK ASACS) which provides up to date information on air activity required to defend the UK and NATO. The UK ASACS is a highly sophisticated computer-based system which gathers and disseminates information on all aircraft flying in and around the UK Air Defence Region - this is known as the Recognized Air Picture (RAP). The information within the RAP is used by the Air Defence Commander when deciding whether to investigate or perhaps even destroy an aircraft flying in an area without permission. Information is fed into the RAP from the RAF's ground-based radars and from the air defence systems of our neighbouring NATO partners. However, the UK ASACS can also receive information via digital data-links from other ground, air or sea-based units including No 1 Air Control Centre, which as a part of the UK's Rapid Reaction Force holds a high state of readiness to deploy world-wide in support of crisis. The United Kingdom Air Operations Centre (UKCAOC) is situated within Headquarters Strike Command at RAF High Wycombe.

The UK ASACS has two operational Control and Reporting Centres (CRC's) based at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire and at RAF Boulmer in Northumberland. The CRC’s receive and process information provided round-the- clock by military and civilian radars to produce the RAP. In addition to this radar data, the CRC’s also exchange information using digital data-links with neighbouring NATO partners, AEW aircraft and ships. However, the production of the RAP is only one part of the CRC’s duties, the second being the control of aircraft.

The CRC’s are supported by three Reporting Posts (RP’s) across the UK. In addition to those found at the CRC’s, the locations of these RP’s reflects the locations of the RAF's main Air Defence radars that feed information into the UK ASACS. These Reporting Posts are located at: RP Portreath which is a satellite of RAF St Mawgan, RAF Staxton Wold and RAF Benbecula in the Hebrides. A Reporting Post at Saxa Vord closed in 2005 and another at Bishopscourt in Northern Ireland closed in the late 1990's

RAF Portreath also now acts as a training and development base for the Cornwall County Fire Brigade incorporating the Commercial & Industrial Training Section which offers a range of training courses for commerce and industry.

RAF PORTREATH TODAY
The  Sector Operations still stands on Tregea Hill  close to a new residential development  and on the east side of the prominent Victorian incline that brought a branch of the Hayle Railway into Portreath.

The SOC saw little use during WW2 opening in July 1943 to replace the earlier SOC at Tehidy Barton Farm. It closed in late 1944 and was replaced by the Exeter SOC at Poltimore Park (this later became the administration block for the ROC Group HQ. The site was considered in 1961/2 as a civil defence control centre for the West Cornwall area but the cost was

who turned the operations room into a licensed leisure complex  known as the ‘Ops Room Inn’ incorporating a dance hall. The Ops Room Inn closed in 1996 due to lack of patrons and the building is currently being converted into a number of flats.  An additional floor has been added at one end of the building and the entire building has been given a new hipped roof. An integral lookout tower at the back of the building has been retained and incorporated into the conversion. At the time of writing the operations room has been partitioned but is still recognisable with an

The Ops Room Inn (click to enlarge)

ledge to the rear of Battery House above Portreath. This building can only be accessed from a steep overgrown path in the rear garden of Battery House and consists of a small rendered roofless building still within a fenced compound. Much of the WW2 domestic camp is still extant along the north side of Penberthy Road (B3330) to the south of the airfield. Many of the buildings have been refurbished as light industrial and retail units while a few are now in residential use.

WT station for the SOC (Click to enlarge)

18 covered air raid shelters are also still extant (there were originally 19 but one has been demolished). These are of a unique design, internally similar to the Stanton shelter generally found at airfields with a walk in entrance down steps at either end leading to a single room about 25 feet in length. Unusually at Portreath the shelters have 12 external ventilation stacks in two lines along each side of the roof. These shelters are all in good dry condition and some are even lit. One of these shelters has been incorporated into a ‘Cornish Hedge’.  (a stone faced earth bank often forming a field boundary in Cornwall).

Type 101 radar

The present radar is a Type 101 now housed beneath a Kevlar radome for added protection against the weather. The bunker is set into the side of a small valley on the south side of the airfield and is not visible from outside the perimeter fence. The bunker is semi sunken with an open front and earth cover to the rear with protruding intake and exhaust ventilation shafts. Both the main personnel entrance and the plant entrance/emergency exit are located at the front of the bunker. The personnel entrance is at the end of

The Comcen is on the right with its data transmitters relaying the data from the radar to the CRC’s at Boulmer and Scampton.   Beyond this is the BT frame room and then steps down to the lower plant and domestic areas. The air conditioning plant room is next on the right and is still fully functioning although at a reduced capacity. The next room houses the Atlanta standby generator and control cabinets.  The generator is still tested once a month.  From here the corridor turns to the left through a large blast door which also acts as an emergency exit. Beyond this there is a dog-legged open walkway back to the front of the bunker.

Returning to the main spine corridor, the first room on the left is the police guard room and beyond it the computer room which is still in use. Beyond this is a workshop. At the back of the workshop is a corridor into the 1992 extension to the bunker which incorporates a number of rooms including the buffer power supply room which still retains its power smoothing machinery.

Beyond the workshop the next room on the left is the former operations room. This originally housed two rows of universal display consoles but these were removed when the station was downgraded to a remote radar head with only the controller’s desk, computer and electrical switch gear still remaining at one end of the room. Back in the main corridor the domestic rooms are at the bottom of the stairs on the left comprising male and female toilets, rest room and the site manager’s office.

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