Roxel Rocket Test Site.

ROXEL is an Anglo-French Company formed in February 2003 by the merging of CELERG of France and Royal Ordnance Rocket Motors of the UK.

ROXEL is owned equally by SNPE Matériaux Energétiques and MBDA. It is worth mentioning that Roxel is only one of three other facilities that are registered in the UK as Hazardous Substances sites.

Over the years the site has been owned by IMI, Royal Ordnance and British Aerospace but is now part of the Roxel Group, headquartered in Paris.

The company produce propulsion systems for tactical weapons and cruise missiles.

The Wyre Forest test range is the secondary site with the main one over in Summerfield, there portfolio consists of projects such as:

MILAN, HOT, STARSTREAK, VL SEAWOLF, RAPIER, ASRAAM,

AS15, AS30, ROLAND, ASMP and the EXOCET family of weapons.

MAGIC, MICA, CROTALE,

SHAHINE (BC PROTAC) as well as SUPER 530 D MISTRAL (SPS).

With such a pedigree we initially thought this place would be impossible to crack, but after knowing about the place for some time and being mentioned on Alan Turnbulls rather comprehensive website Secret Bases, we thought it would of been rude not to drop in.

When we arrived we had around and hour before it went dark, so we proceeded to our main objective, the Test Bed.

We approached through the forest, which is still all owned by the MOD with visions of being stopped by Military Police, Armed guards and Dog Units and being detained as Terrorists!

Fortunately we where lucky and didnt see any kind of security measures at all, with the exception of the obvious perimeter fencing and CCTV which looked inactive?

With this in mind though it was extremely risky and possibly life threatening, none the less though and awesome explore and one I`m glad we done.

We explored every inch of this place but sadly found no propulsion systems only a few test missiles, and empty test bed where the rockets are tried out.

It does seem some what odd though, given the status and purpose of the site that security is so inadequote???.