page_title: Lista Air Station
section_title: Closing
hierarchical_section_title: Lista Air Station / History / Closing
caption_attribution_description: English: The former Lista flystasjon (Lista Air Force Station) in the municipality of Farsund, Norway
context_page_description: Lista Air Station was a military airbase situated on the Lista peninsula in Farsund, Norway. It features a 2,990-meter concrete runway aligned 14/32, and a 1,521-meter runway aligned 09/27. The facility was shared with Farsund Airport, Lista, which remains in operation.
  The airbase was built by Luftwaffe between 1941 and 1944, during the German occupation of Norway. Throughout the Second World War it was predominantly used for fighter aircraft and served as part of the Atlantic Wall. Most of the buildings at the station date from this period. It was taken over by the Royal Norwegian Air Force in 1946. It was at first closed and then reopened, originally serving a weapon-technical school and a shooting and bombing school. The latter utilized the shooting area at Marka.
  Lista received North Atlantic Treaty Organization funding for a runway extension, which was built between 1955 and 1959. Lista was designated a reserve airbase throughout the Cold War. The RNoAF's recruit school was located at Lista from 1963 to 1984. Thereafter it was mostly used for conferences. Lista Air Station was closed on 6 June 1996.
context_section_description: Due to the restructuring of the military in the 1990s, Parliament voted on 8 June 1994 to close Lista Air Station. Effective from 1 June 1996, the military was set to retain ownership of the facility for ten years. Parliament granted the Defence Estates Agency the right to sell the air station for market price as part of a large-scale sale of defunct military estates. The condition was that any other state or public uses be given priority and that the sale take place through an open sales process.
  In June 1996 the Defence Estates Agency signed a ten-year lease on the entire air station with the latter company for an annual rent of 10,000 Norwegian krone per year. The agency retained the responsibility to maintain the property. Lista Lufthavn received an option for the company to buy the entire facility for NOK 25 million. In 1999 the agency were in talks with Farsund Municipality, but stipulated a sales price of NOK 200 million. The municipality therefore withdrew their interest. The agency sold the air station to Lista Flypark. They took over ownership on 9 December 2002.
  The air station was valuated at NOK 11 million, yet sold for NOK 3.5 million. There was no documentation for why this discount was given. Both Lista Lufthavn and Lista Flypark's contracts were so structured that they had incentives to delay any commercial development of the property. The sale was carried out without public announcement. Eight sections were also sold between 1998 and 2003 without announcement. Avinor asked to take over the control tower and the Directorate for Nature Management asked to take over Slevdalsvannet, but both of these requests were ignored.
  All in all the military spent NOK 53 million on the process of selling the property. Subtracted the sales price, this was what the military spend on operating the base after closure, maintaining it and in various discounts to purchasers for them to fix up the base after the sale took place. The scandal resulted in Parliament changing the sales procedures so that they had to be approved of by the government. The Defence Estates Agency retrospectively admitted their mistake and restructured their processes and organization to better handle sales and avoid future scandals.
  Most of the base has been listed as a cultural heritage. This includes the runways, the taxiway and the road network, the remaining buildings from the Second World War and Marka. An important aspect when listing was that many of the structures had not been modified since the war. Slevdalsvannet Nature Reserve is situated southwest of the runway. A former lake, it has since been drained. It remains an important wetland area for migratory birds and is part of a Ramsar site. The nature reserve was established in 2005 and in 2014 three small lakes were artificially recreated. The site was bought by the Ministry of the Environment in 2013.
caption: Military building since redeveloped to civilian use
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