The United States is upgrading its airbases in the United Kingdom, British media reported, which would enable Washington to "intercept international communications and launch military strikes from Britain more quickly and with more devastating effects," investigative journalism website Declassified UK said Wednesday.

According to the website, the US has allocated $40 million to expand Menwith Hill, North Yorkshire, describing the US National Security Agency’s biggest surveillance facility outside America.

Washington also allocated $300 million to Fairford, Gloucestershire, in addition to an undisclosed sum to Croughton. Fairford has been the forward base for American B52 and Stealth bombers.

The US program will last for five years and will see Washington adding to its roster B52 bomber maintenance hangar, weapons storage, a mobile airbase, and a facility to rapidly repair aircraft.

In theory, the website said, the British government could veto US operations from these bases; though the amount of money Washington continues to spend on them suggests it expects no objections.