SECURITY at Menwith Hill US listening base, near Harrogate, is to be intensified.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has submitted two applications to Harrogate Borough Council for the Nidderdale moorland base.

One involves the installation of an 8ft perimeter fence and 36 closed-circuit television cameras, as well as four 360 degree cameras.

In addition, a farm building is being constructed and patrol roads created on the site.

Because the application has been tabled by the MoD and has Crown immunity, the borough council cannot approve or refuse it, but merely comment on it.

In its response, borough council planning officers regretted the need for the scheme but welcomed improvements to boundary hedgerows and tree groups. They also welcomed a cut in night-time illumination.

Meanwhile, they have asked that the barn should be constructed in timber with a dark brown roof.

In a separate application for the base, the MoD applied for the installation of an antenna/radome and ancillary building.

The base has more than two dozen 100ft diameter "golf ball" radomes dominating the skyline of the surrounding Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

The developments are part of a string of measures to increase security on the site.

Recent applications have covered a visitor control centre, vehicle inspection building, extra illumination, new fencing, gates and crash barriers.

Overall security has been regularly stepped up since the attack on the World Trade Centre in the US, the Iraq war and earlier breaching of the boundary fence by peace campaigners.