VSM Estates has been given permission to convert the former RAF Bentley Priory site in Harrow into a museum and residential homes.

Harrow Council gave the developer, a joint venture between St Modwen and construction company Vinci, the go ahead for the £9.5m development, which will include 103 homes, last night. Barratt Homes will build the majority of the new homes at the site and VSM will announce the chosen developers for the new museum shortly.

Considerable investment will also be made in the Mansion House on the site and the site’s Italian Gardens will be restored.

All partners, including the Council, VSM Estates, the Bentley Priory Battle of Britain Trust - who will operate the museum - and Defence Estates worked closely via a steering group led by The Prince’s Regeneration Trust to find a commercially viable solution that preserves the site’s heritage.

Guy Gusterson, land director, VSM Estates said: “We have worked tirelessly to find a way forward for Bentley Priory, which preserves its heritage but which also allows much-needed new homes to be built and generates money for the MOD to reinvest in facilities for current service personnel.  Collectively, all partners have developed a highly innovative response to this challenge.”

Bentley Priory to be converted into Battle of Britain museum By Matthew Moore - Published (The Daily Telegraph): 7:30AM BST 17 Sep 2010

There is a further article in the Daily Telegraph relating to the launch of an Appeal.

Bentley Priory acted as the RAF nerve centre during the air onslaught of 1940      Photo: ANDREW CROWLEY

The country house from where RAF chiefs commanded "The Few" during the Second World War is to be converted into a Battle of Britain museum, after a five-year campaign.

Bentley Priory in Stanmore, north west London, will become a permanent memorial to Fighter Command’s crucial role in protecting Britain from Luftwaffe raids. Under Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding, the mansion house acted as the RAF nerve centre during the air onslaught of 1940.

Officers used eyewitness, radar and radio intercept information to track the arrival of German aircraft, ensuring fighters could be scrambled before enemy bombers reached their targets. The Grade II listed mansion was immortalised by the 1969 film Battle of Britain, in which Lord Dowding – played by Laurence Olivier – was shown watching London burn from his balcony.

Campaigners feared that Bentley Priory, which was designed by 19^th Century architect Sir John Soane, would be lost to the nation after plans for a museum fell through in 2008 due to the financial downturn. But on Wednesday night Harrow Council unanimously approved new proposals for the ground floor of the property to be restored to how it looked during the height of the battle in 1940 – complete with a large map of Britain over the ballroom dance floor.

As part of the deal to fund the project, 103 private homes will be built on the upper floors and elsewhere on the site. The campaign for a permanent memorial to Lord Dowding and "The Few" has been led by retired RAF officer Air Chief Marshal Sir Brian Burridge, chairman of the Bentley Priory Battle of Britain Trust. Yesterday he told The Daily Telegraph: "This museum will commemorate the entire Battle of Britain, but focus particularly on Dowding’s extraordinary detection, command, and control system. Without it, there is simply no way we could have won the war, and that story cannot be told anywhere but Bentley Priory."
He added: "It’s said that the Battle of Trafalgar saved England. I submit that the Battle of Britain saved the world."

The museum, which will be funded in part by a £9.5 million windfall from the RAF's sale of the site to developer Barratt Homes, is due to open in Spring 2013. Visitors will be able to tour the office where Lord Dowding worked 48-hour shifts, and see a hologram recreation of the man nicknamed "Stuffy" by his men.

The aristocratic living rooms which became the hub of Britain's air defence system will also be restored to their wartime state. In the filter room, originally the ladies room, staff manned dozens of phone lines to collate information on German raids supplied by the RAF's nascent radar network and the thousands of volunteers recruited by the Observer Corps to keep an eye on the country's skies.

The most pressing news was passed to the operations room next door, where Lord Dowding’s senior officers decided when and where to deploy the country’s hard-pressed fighter groups. Battle of Britain historians hope the Bentley Priory museum will enhance the reputation of Lord Dowding, whose achievements have sometimes been eclipsed by other Second World War heroes – including Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park, one of his most trusted officers.

Sir Keith Park was honoured with a bronze statue on Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth, which was this week moved to a permanent home in Waterloo Place to mark the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain.
Despite a prickly and distant personality, Lord Dowding earned the respect and loyalty of the pilots under his command. He was also forced to repel the Nazis while under the constant threat of forced retirement, only receiving reassurance that he we would be allowed to retain his position on August 13 1940, when the Battle of Britain was well under way. Bentley Priory remained an RAF base after the war, serving as a training facility following the departure of 11 Group in 2000.

The Bentley Priory Battle of Britain Trust will next month launch a campaign to raise the extra £1 million required to cover the museum's future running costs.