Lieutenant General Sir Richard Shirreff on the arrival of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps in Gloucestershire.

MANY of you will be aware that Headquarters Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) has now arrived and is settling in to its new home in Imjin Barracks, Innsworth.

It is a great pleasure and opportunity for me to explain exactly who we are, the role we play in UK and NATO and our near-term aspirations.

I want to start by saying how genuinely delighted we are to be here and to thank everyone for their extremely warm welcome.

Moving more than 2,000 people from Germany to UK in a relatively short timeframe has not been easy but the job has been eased considerably by the positive approach and attitude of everyone we have come into contact with here in Gloucestershire.

We are extremely grateful and encouraged by the links and friendships we have made and look forward to continuing these relationships as we work together in the future.

So who are we? The ARRC is essentially a rapidly deployable NATO headquarters that is designed to command troops in any trouble spot or crisis situation across the globe.

The initial concept and requirement was first identified in the early 1990s by NATO and the UK took on the role of forming the first of these headquarters as a clear demonstration of our commitment to NATO.

Since then a further seven rapidly deployable HQs have been formed throughout Europe. The ARRC is made up of more than 450 officers and soldiers from 15 partner nations, 40 per cent of which are from countries other than the UK.

We are also supported by up to a further 3,000 UK troops, not all located here in Gloucester, who provide our security and protection, our complex communications requirements and other particular and specialist capabilities.

Having been located in Germany since 1992 we are now uniquely the only military formation of this type located in UK.

Since our formation we have been deployed to command troops in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and will again deploy to Afghanistan next year. We are also required to maintain ourselves at a constant state of readiness which means that we spend much of our time preparing to deploy on operations.

We are continually developing new concepts and ideas that are tested in training and practised on operations that assist both NATO and our military hierarchies in adapting for the complexities of 21st Century conflict.

The foundation of our capability is a vibrant multinational community which has developed a very strong ethos through deploying, training, working and living together.

In terms of what next, we are focused on preparing ourselves for a deployment of the staff to Afghanistan in 2011, but also we want to consolidate our home base here in the UK.

Critical to this is our integration and involvement with the Gloucestershire community and here we believe we have much to offer and will want to play as full a part as we possibly can.

Establishing a firm base here in Gloucestershire and a strong relationship with the local community will be key to our success as a headquarters.

To build this relationship we intend to make the most of all the opportunities available to us, be they sporting, cultural, social or just in our day-to-contact with the community.

We are keen to discover where we can contribute to local life and enhance the lives of our neighbours and the wider community, something we will be concentrating on in the near term.

We are all thoroughly looking forward to this and recognise how fortunate we are, not only to be living in such a very special area of England, but also to be based in a county such as Gloucestershire in which military service resonates so strongly.