RAF Riccall

The airfield was closed due to the end of World War II and the subsequent military drawdown. As a temporary wartime station built for a specific purpose, it was deemed surplus to the requirements of the peacetime Royal Air Force.

The site has been extensively redeveloped and is no longer recognizable as an active airfield. The majority of the former airfield is now the 'Riccall Airfield Industrial Estate', which hosts a large number of businesses in both new and repurposed wartime buildings, including original T2 type hangars. A significant portion of the site is also occupied by the Riccall Solar Farm, a large-scale renewable energy project. While the main runways have been largely removed or built over, remnants of the perimeter track and some airfield buildings are still visible and integrated into the industrial estate's layout. Other parts of the site have returned to agricultural use.

RAF Riccall was a significant World War II airfield that opened in September 1942. It was a satellite station to the larger RAF Elvington and was part of No. 4 Group, RAF Bomber Command. Its primary role was to host heavy bomber squadrons for the strategic night bombing campaign against Germany. The station was built to the Class A airfield standard with three concrete runways. The main operational units based at Riccall were No. 76 Squadron and later No. 78 Squadron, both flying the Handley Page Halifax heavy bomber. After flying operations ceased in 1945, the site was used by No. 91 Maintenance Unit for bomb storage until its final disposal. The ICAO code 'GB-1207' is a non-standard identifier used in some databases and not an official ICAO airport code, which for the UK would start with 'EG'.

There are no plans or prospects for reopening RAF Riccall as an airport. The site has been comprehensively redeveloped for industrial, commercial, and energy generation purposes for several decades. The original aviation infrastructure is either gone, heavily degraded, or repurposed, and the land is under the ownership of multiple private entities. Re-establishing it as an airfield would be logistically and financially unfeasible.