 It was then expected that central government might itself cease to exist, and control would pass entirely into the hands of a regional commissioner, of cabinet rank, who would wield absolute power in his region.His staff would replicate all parts of central government.In tune with this philosophy of dispersal, work continued to refurbish and expand a former underground aircraft factory and ammunition store at Hawthorn, Wiltshire, built in a vast complex of former Bath stone quarries near Bath, as a final emergency national seat of government.