years. The site was eventually bought by a local entrepreneur and businessman, Brian Scowcroft, who made a sizeable investment developing the site into the extensive regional business park known as Kingmoor Park, the role that continues today. The main site is as much the hub of operations today as it was when it was in RAF service. It houses the site admin blocks, many local businesses have converted hangars into workshops, several national and international businesses have depots there. The helipad area disappeared under The Capita Group's new building, where Capita Business Services now operates various services for Cumbria County Council under tender for fifteen years. Capita Symonds also works out of the same building, where they develop computer software and act as consultants on highways, amongst other functions. The Cargo site has been cleared and a new residential housing estate is now under construction. The stock of RAF Carlisle officers' and other ranks' married-quarter housing was sold originally to Carlisle City Council and is now almost completely owner-occupied. The last "gate guardian" aircraft at RAF Carlisle was the Phantom FGR2 No XV406, ex 64 Sqn/228OCU at Leuchars. After RAF Carlisle was closed, this aircraft was transferred to the Solway Aviation Museum at Carlisle Lake District Airport where it still stands. Other "gate guardians" at RAF Carlisle have included a Gloster Meteor NF14, a Vampire T11 and a Hawker Hunter F1. Radioactive contamination During 1992 radioactive radium was discovered at the RAF Carlisle site by accident when a member of the Royal Observer Corps walked across a patch of ground testing a recently recalibrated PDRM82 geiger counter. After further investigations it was realised that the RAF had incinerated thousands of luminous dials from the old wartime trainer aircraft in accordance with the disposal policy of the 1940s and 1950s known as "bash, bury or burn". The resulting radioactive ash had been scattered and used during later landscaping of the site. The radioactive ash had also been used as packing around fence posts on the airfield boundary. Hotspots of up to 250,000 Bq of radioactivity were identified where unburnt dials had been abandoned in piles on the ground. Such levels would be harmful inside the body and could burn the skin in hours. Since 1992, scientists have analysed up to 10,000 soil samples from the closed RAF Carlisle site and so far have published thirty separate reports. Over three hundred cubic