£200m carrier work may come to North

May 21 2008 by Graeme King, The Journal

UP TO £200m worth of work could be heading for the North East after the Ministry of Defence officially approved a £3.9bn project to build two aircraft carriers.

The 65,000-tonne vessels, which can each carry up to 40 aircraft, are to be built in four giant sections at yards in Barrow, Cumbria, in Glasgow and at Rosyth near Edinburgh.

A total of 10,000 existing jobs are set to be safeguarded by the project with another 1,000 also to be created.

Ship repair and fabrication yards A&P Tyne in Hebburn, McNulty in South Shields, Heerema in Hartlepool and Cleveland Bridge in Darlington, are all set to benefit from work on the carriers, as will dozens of smaller defence contractors across the region.

The HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales will be the biggest and most powerful surface warships built in the UK, and will enter service in 2014 and 2016 respectively.

Defence Secretary Des Browne said yesterday the MoD has now completed the financial, commercial and management arrangements necessary for the project to go ahead.

Contracts will be signed once a new shipbuilding joint venture known as BVT has been set up by BAE Systems and VT Group.

The long-awaited “green light” to build the new carriers has been warmly welcomed by hundreds of defence companies in the North East.

Trevor Harrison, managing director of Northern Defence Industries, said: “NDI has been working closely with the prime contractors involved in the carrier programme over a number of years and we have already done much to promote the skills and capabilities of our 200 member companies in readiness for this announcement.

“NDI has already held meetings with Alan Johnstone, chief executive officer (designate) of BVT. In April we welcomed Mr Johnstone to the Marine Design Centre in Newcastle where he met member companies and outlined BVT’s plans.

“We have before us a huge opportunity – and we are determined that the region will win substantial business as a result.”

Robin Fox, director and general manager of NDI, said: “We believe the figure (for North East contractors) will be around £180m to £200m over the period of the carriers’ construction. We are certainly going to be sustaining jobs, and I would like to think we will be creating jobs as well. The Marine Design Centre has already bid into the carrier design project. We will be looking to ensure we can capture elements of the design work for the MDC, to the benefit of the sector locally.”

Heerema has already said it is keen to win work on the carriers. Frank Moran, director of the Hartlepool yard, has said: “It’s our type of work – for example the aircraft carrier would have modular units that form part of the upper deck. None of the oil and gas yards have done this type of work before.”

Alan Hall, region director of manufacturing body EEF, said: “This region has a very long tradition of shipbuilding and marine design. Despite major changes in the sector, there is still skill and expertise in marine engineering and the region is well placed to capitalise on this announcement.”