THE future of one of Malvern's most distinctive landmarks, a giant radar dish at QinetiQ, is under threat.

Senior staff at what used to be DERA are debating what to do with the "Byson" radar, which has been part of the skyline of South Site, for decades.

They have not ruled out dismantling the white-painted oval dish, thought to be the last of its kind anywhere in the country.

The QinetiQ site, off St Andrew's Road, is currently undergoing the first phase of its most radical change since it was founded in the 1940s.

Building work is already under way on two new buildings, which are due to be finished in Dec-ember 2002 and February 2003.

When they are finished, staff currently in the Byson building will be redeployed there.

QinetiQ site manager Steve Booth said the future of the radar was under discussion.

"It has not been used for experimental or research purposes for about six months," he said. "But the building itself is not included for demolition in the plan."

He said nothing can be ruled out about the future of the radar antenna.

"We are looking at all the options and costing them, including carting it off to the scrapheap, finding a museum to take it or finding another establishment which can use it.

"It is a very substantial piece of kit. It weighs about 14 tons and although it does not look very big from off-site, it is immense when you stand under it."

The dish has become a symbol for the establishment. For a few years during the 1990s, a drawing of it featured on official letterheads as part of the DERA logo.

A picture of it appears in this year's calendar issued by the Malverns Experience, of which QinetiQ is a partner. It is also featured in Malvern Museum.

Historian Dr Ernest Putley said the dish was a prototype version of a device which was for many years the RAF's main air defence radar.

He said: "The trouble with preserving it is that it will cost money for maintenance. Whether QinetiQ would want to pay, I do not know."

He said the dish had been used for decades to test electronics for successive generations of radar equipment. It is powerful enough to detect aircraft flying above the Channel Isles, some 200 miles away.

"I think a similar example has been preserved at an RAF museum at Neatishead in Norfolk," he said.

Katherine Barber, chairman of Malvern Civic Society, said: "I think I would be concerned if it were to disappear. Radar put Malvern on the map, just like the water cure did a hundred years earlier."

Donald Tomlin, who worked on the device when it was assembled at North Site, said: "If it is dismantled, I might make noises to have it reassembled at Neatishead, where the RAF has its Air Defence Control Museum."