MI6 shuts down a spy school after floor plans to the site were revealed in council blunder
- MI6 were forced to close a top-secret training facility after documents leaked
- The London centre had been used to teach agents spycraft and self-defence
- Officers from the Secret Intelligence Service are now trained at another location
MI6 has closed down a top-secret training facility after its location and floor plans were made public in a bureaucratic blunder.
The discreet central London training centre had been used for many years to teach agents spycraft and self-defence.
But it is now vacant and officers from the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) are instead trained at another location, sources confirmed.
The closure came after planning documents were published by bumbling council bureaucrats that revealed in detail a series of costly, new additions to the building, including five satellite dishes, high-tech security gates and a complex network of CCTV cameras.
MI6 has closed down a top-secret training facility after its location and floor plans were made public in a bureaucratic blunder
The Mail on Sunday knows the location of the building, but is not revealing it for security reasons.
The white stucco-fronted building with Roman pillars is located in a well-heeled area of Westminster, sandwiched between multi-million-pound apartments. In the past, neighbours had complained the signal on their TVs and radios were being affected by ‘electromagnetic interference’ from the building.
The documents further reveal MI6 received a stern email from Westminster planning chiefs after the satellite dishes were installed without permission ‘knowing that Government departments are immune’.
The applications, which have been on the internet for almost a decade, were submitted under the name ‘Government Communications Bureau’ – shorthand for MI6. One request from 2017 refers to the building as ‘Government offices’.
In perhaps an even bigger blunder, detailed plans for the spy training centre in central London have been available online since 2004 – while still in regular use by SIS officers – and are available to hostile foreign states.
It is understood that MI6 decided to vacate the building for strategy and not security concerns. The Foreign Office did not comment.
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