Navy to close doors at Dartmouth

Dartmouth’s Royal Naval College is the last dedicated institution to train naval officers in Britain.

The college, which is where the Duke of Edinburgh was trained and where he first met the Queen, is thought to have been sacrificed in return for two new aircraft carriers.

The Prince of Wales and the Duke of York were also cadets at the Navy’s equivalent of Sandhurst, whose full name is Britannia Royal Naval College.

The 126 acres of land along the River Dart in Devon is expected to be sold for development into luxury flats which could command prices of up to £1 million each.

More than 400 people are employed by the college which costs millions of pounds a year to maintain despite the fact that cadet numbers have fallen to around 350 people at any one time – around half the amount who attended in the 1980s.

It is the last dedicated institution to train naval officers in Britain after the closure of the college in Greenwich, London in 1998.

Commander John Muxworthy, chief executive of the UK National Defence Association, and former Dartmouth cadet, described the decision as “casting tradition away.”

“It’s giving up your heritage,” he said. “People appear to be clutching at straws to save money.”

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence they could not comment on speculation over cuts until the details of the Comprehensive Spending Review is made public this week.