A military coup became reality yesterday in the Vale of White Horse, as work began on a new £50m staff college for senior officers of all three armed services.

The sprawling complex on the Royal Military College of Science site, at Watchfield, will replace existing Army, Navy and Royal Air Force staff colleges, and become a world-class training facility for service high-fliers.

Due to be in operation by the turn of the century, it is set to create hundreds of jobs and boost the county's economy.

Amid scenes of high security, Defence Secretary George Robertson cut the first turf with a spade and then finished the job with a mechanical digger.

He told the assembled dignitaries: "Today our armed forces must increasingly expect to operate with one another on combined or integrated operations. The Strategic Defence Review has confirmed that extending the principle of joint service co-operation is fundamental to the improvements that we have to make in order to produce modern forces for the modern world.

"The Joint Services Command and Staff College was set up at Bracknell, but by bringing its different arms together in new buildings on a single site here at Watchfield, we will provide a tangible modern symbol of this government's commitment in the area of joint-service co-operation."

Mr Robertson added: "The new college will draw on all that was best about single-service staff colleges, but the whole will be greater than the sum of the parts. "I expect the college to be a world-class institution, an international leader in the field of the joint and combined command staff training."

The news early last year that Watchfield had been chosen for the prestigious project against its rival site at Camberley, in Surrey, was hailed as a massive coup by the Vale district council. Its chief executive, Terry Stock, was among the invited guests.

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