Nuclear weapons storage in spotlight as US plans $4bn boost for its UK airbases

The $4bn upgrade plans highlight the breadth of the US military and security establishment’s footprint in the UK. Composite: Guardian Design/NurPhoto/Shutterstock/Getty Images View image in fullscreen The $4bn upgrade plans highlight the breadth of the US military and security establishment’s footprint in the UK. Composite: Guardian Design/NurPhoto/Shutterstock/Getty Images Nuclear weapons storage in spotlight as US plans $4bn boost for its UK airbases Exclusive: Pentagon files suggest some new facilities will store nuclear arsenal, with $163m also earmarked for secretive spy base More than $4bn (£3bn) is to be spent upgrading the US government’s military and spy bases in the UK, according to official documents that shed light on the UK’s apparent role as a secretive site for American nuclear weapons. The construction plans include building new bunkers in Suffolk, which will seemingly be used to store nuclear weapons, and modernising facilities to help covert units run secret operations. The US military is also planning to upgrade its base in Gloucestershire, from which waves of powerful bombers attacked Iran earlier this year on the orders of Donald Trump. The plans highlight the breadth of the US military and security establishment’s footprint in the UK, where more than 12,000 US military personnel are spread around at least 15 bases and facilities. There are questions about whether Britain should continue to host the US installations on its soil. For more than seven decades, successive governments have seen the bases as a foundation of the UK’s military partnership with the US. map View image in fullscreen A protester pictured outside RAF Lakenheath in April. Photograph: Martin Pope/Getty Images View image in fullscreen An F-35A landing at RAF Lakenheath. Photograph: Nigel Blake/Alamy But the alliance has been jeopardised by Trump’s repeated criticisms of the UK government for failing to support his war on Iran. He has threatened to reduce the numbers of US aircraft and warships stationed throughout Europe, but has not proposed any specific changes to American bases in the UK. The US modernisation plans were outlined in papers presented at a military engineering conference earlier this year and documents submitted to the US Congress detailing Pentagon expenditure. Bunker busters and a Burger King: a visual guide to US military bases on British soil Read more Members of a Pentagon unit responsible for overseeing the construction of military projects, the Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center , gave the presentation to the conference in March. Their slides said the value of the current “planning, design and construction” projects at the American bases in the UK was $4.2bn, with an additional $1.3bn characterised as in “draft status”. A spokesperson for the Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center said some of this total included money from a Nato fund that finances military construction projects, adding that the exact amount