Elizabeth Fish

Proposals to shape economic growth in Lincoln are ready to go before the City Council’s Executive Committee.

The Lincoln Growth Strategy will be scrutinised by the Executive on June 16.

The strategy will work in tandem with the City Masterplan, and aims to make Lincoln a great place with good access, people, partnerships and innovations.

These priorities were shaped by consulting with key stakeholders in public, private and voluntary sectors.

It will help drive economic growth, enhance the city’s look, improve employment prospects and reduce poverty.

“Lincoln will evolve into a beautifully engineered world class historic city becoming internationally renowned for its enterprise, heritage and educational excellence, whilst demonstrating that being a competitive city does not equal compromising on people, values or culture.”

Neil Cuttell, Regeneration Manager for the City Council, said: “The Lincoln Growth Strategy brings together key priorities and objectives which create beneficial change for the city, and has identified a number of actions and how they can be achieved.

“While the City Council will oversee the development of the strategy, its actions are owned by all the stakeholders so there is full agreement to deliver a prosperous city which meets the vision set out.

“A Growth Forum and Growth Board will oversee the delivery of the strategy and monitor its actions.

“The council’s strategic priorities are to grow the local economy, increase the supply of affordable housing and protect the poorest people and this document goes a long way to helping us achieve these.”

It is recommended that the Executive approve the strategy then it be incorporated into the Constitution’s Policy Framework.

If approved, the council can then promote the completed strategy to stakeholders, set up Growth Board meetings and Growth Forum meetings, agree an action plan to deliver the document and then arrange a monitoring programme for the projects and initiatives.

Lincoln and the surrounding areas would have been completely destroyed in the event of a nuclear strike during the Cold War, newly-released historic documents indicate.

In “top secret” UK government documents from the 1970s, which have since been declassified and stored by the National Archives, RAF bases in Lincolnshire made up six of 106 Soviet nuclear targets during the Cold War.

According to the documents, RAF Waddington, RAF Scampton, RAF Conningsby and RAF Cranwell would have been nuclear strike targets, with Lincolnshire naval communications bases also under threat.

While Lincoln itself was not one of targets, the 5-mile thermal radiation radius resulting from bombing nearby bases would cause serious third degree burns among people in the city, while nearby villages would be completely destroyed by the air blast radius.

Third degree burns extend throughout the layers of skin, and are often painless because they destroy the pain nerves. They can cause severe scarring or disablement, and can require amputation.

The nuclear fallout in Lincolnshire according to National Archive Cold War nuke targets. Photo: Nukemap by Alex Wellerstein

The Soviet Union made the UK a target in the 1970s because it was part of Nato’s military structure.

Other targets included a variety of cities such as Cambridge, Sunderland, Nottingham, Leicester and Kidderminster in addition to most notable locations.

However, researchers dispute Whitehall’s megaton estimates and locations, believing that targets such as power stations had been omitted.

To be safe from a nuclear attack in the UK, the best places to flee to would be Tighary in Scotland, Aberystwyth in Wales or Brighton or Oxford in England.

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defence said: “These are historical records and like many other documents released every year by the National Archives have little or no relevance to the present day.”

[button url=”http://robedwards.typepad.com/files/probable-nuclear-targets-1972-national-archives.pdf” title=”National Archive doc”]View the archived documents[/button]