This base is undergoing a complete redevelopment which is costing £330,000,000. These are the first aerial pictures on the web (EXCLUSIVE TO THIS SITE) showing the enormous scale of the building work which is currently being undertaken. It is the biggest single construction project in Europe and will take seven years until its completion. 120,000 tons of clay will be excavated as they prepare the foundations for the huge spy base at Benhall, Cheltenham, UK.

When this is complete in September 2000, work will begin to start pouring 20,000 tons of concrete into the foundations. At present, 3,000 reinforced concrete piles are being driven 50ft into the ground to support the huge weight of the finished complex. The four-storey £330 million developement will be 70ft high and more than 600ft across.

This will make it bigger than the entire Wembley Stadium complex and the Albert Hall would fit into the hole in the middle of the doughnut. It is rumoured that a laundry, creche,gymnasium,hairdressing salon,shops.cafes and spacious walkways lined with plants will be included when  the building is completed. Another GCHQ site which is situated at Oakley should be empty by 2003. It is earmarked for 500 houses, a supermarket, doctor's surgery, takeaway and a video shop. Another 300 houses will be built at Benhall.

Spaces around the doughnut will allow for 1,750 cars in concentric rings and covered parking for 200 bikes. Developers Carillion will install more than 20,000 tons of glass and inside there will be 90,000 square metres of floor space. BT will install 3,000 kilometres of fibre optics and 9,000 kilometres of telephone line. The cooling system will be equipped with 27 kilometres of chilled beams as part of the cooling system. 30 megavolts of electricity supply is sufficient to serve a quarter of Cheltenham. It will feed power to one of the most complex computer systems in the world.
 

Francis Richards, director of GCHQ, said: "This new building will help us to deliver our vital service to the nation. The building is handsome, modern and efficient and I'm confident that the town as well as GCHQ will be proud of it."

The spybase's deal with developers Carillion, under the Privte Finance Initiative, is the most expensive project ever carried out by the intelligence service, says the report. But because it is shrouded in secrecy some of its key findings have lost their punch at the hands of censors. Instead of quoting the figures, the report states, 'We were told if GCHQ conducted the move in the way it had initially wished it would cost approximately *** million.'

'However GCHQ revised its transition method and an estimation of *** million was put to the treasury and cabinet office. 'Further work has been done and the cost brought down to an estimated *** million. This is four times over the original estimate.' Ministers have been told to keep a tighter grip on the project to keep costs from spiralling out of control.

A GCHQ spokesman said: 'Previous estimates of the cost, risk and timescale of a move were based on a feasability study conducted three-and-a-half years ago. 'We did more detailed study calculated at the end of November 1999. The scale of the cost increase wasn't known to anyone until then.'

The report also reveals that staff are to face rigirous mental health checks to prevent repeats of the embarrassing episode in which a drunken M16 agent left his laptop in the back of a cab. Tests being developed at GCHQ aim to weed out those who have 'adverse character traits'.

Prime Minister Tony Blair came under fire in the report, which revealed a ministerial commitee which sets priorities for M16 and GCHQ had not met for five years. The spokesman said 'You've got to grasp the size and complexity of the computer system. It's a major exercise to prepare for the move so the system can be switched off, taken its new location and switched on again. A commercial enterprise would probably scrap its existing systems and start again. We're not in the position to do that from an operational or financial standpoint.'

GCHQ announced in 1998 it was going to combine its two bases at Benhall and Oakley into a single office. Work on the project, the biggest in Europe, began in the spring and more than 1,000 workers are on site.

This article originally appeared in 'The Citizen' Newspaper - the local paper for the Gloucestershire Region.