WEST WORCESTERSHIRE MP Dame Harriett Baldwin has condemned the Government’s decision to shut down Britain’s space telescopes including one in Worcestershire as ‘scientific vandalism’.
The UK will pay £327 million for telescopes in South Africa as the Government offshores space research, reportedly to save money.
In a letter to Dame Harriett, the Science Minister, Chris McDonald confirmed that the Government was ending funding for Britain’s Jodrell Bank network, which operates the iconic dish at Defford and six other sites.
The MP is a strong critic of the plan, which has ramifications for national security, scientific research, high-skilled jobs, and aerospace defence.
Dame Harriett said: “Jodrell Bank has been used to find black holes in space but now as the Government scrambles to address the black hole in its finances, the telescopes will be closed to save less than £3 million a year.
“It is therefore scandalous that more than £300 million of taxpayers’ money will be spent on building new ones in South Africa.
“We have had three damaging Budgets, the botched Local Government Reorganisation plan and now this act of scientific vandalism that will harm research and innovation in the UK.
“Time and again the Government has shown it has no clue what it is doing and we are all paying for the costs of its mistakes.”
