Memorandum from the Welsh Assembly Government
The Welsh Development Agency (an Assembly Sponsored
Public Body which from 1 April, 2006 is to be merged with the
Welsh Assembly Government) acquired RAF St Athan from the Ministry
of Defence (MoD) in August, 2003. Its purposes in doing so were
twofold; to develop a combined Military and Civil Aerospace centre
of excellence and to support the retention and growth of the Defence
Aviation Repair Agency and its workforce.
As part of that agreement, arrangements were
put in place to enable MoD to construct a new facility (the Red
Draft Super-hangar). This facility would allow DARA to rationalise
its disparate activities on site into one building and enable
it to achieve the financial and operational efficiencies necessary
to deliver both to the military customer and potential future
civil aerospace customers. The building was completed in February,
2005 and DARA took up occupation shortly thereafter.
From the outset, therefore, the St Athan project
was founded on a strong partnership between MoD, the Welsh Assembly
Government and DARA, supported by public sector investment of
over £100 million to date. This would give DARA every opportunity
to develop a strong business base for the future and using DARA's
presence at St Athan, help develop an aerospace park with the
capacity to create a very significant number of additional jobs
over the next 15 years.
At that time a contemporaneous Department for
Transport White Paper on the future of Air Transport in the UK
identified a strong need for regional Centres of Excellence for
maintenance, repair and overhaul and proposed St Athan as a key
location.
South-East Wales already contains a nationally
important cluster of aerospace maintenance companies, and St Athan
is one of very few sites which can offer significant airside development
land and has a runway long enough to accommodate a large range
of civil and military aircraft. It is therefore an essential physical
constituent of any strategy for the growth and safeguarding of
the aerospace sector in Wales and the UK.
In September 2004, MoD took the decision (as
a result of the End-to-End review) to transfer work on the Harrier
and the Tornado from DARA to RAF main operating bases. This has
also resulted in the announcement of approaching 1,000 job losses
at DARA, St Athan.
The Welsh Assembly Government has consistently
stated that it believes this judgment was wrong. It does not understand
how, having constructed a new purpose-built facility for an organisation
which has consistently exceeded targets and reduced maintenance
turn-round times, it can be better value to return this work to
main operating bases where such facilities do not exist.
The Welsh Assembly Government has a real concern
about the long-term viability of the St Athan facility, which
by design is intended to house fast fixed wing jets. The decision
does not just threaten the St Athan Aerospace Park proposition,
it also has a potential impact on the critical mass of the nationally
important aerospace engineering cluster that exists in South-East
Wales.
With a world-wide and UK shortage of aerospace
engineers, the existing skilled workforce at the facility is the
main attraction for aerospace companies when they consider St
Athan. However, the fast timetable for job reductions makes it
incredibly difficult to attract sufficient new job opportunities
to the base before the essential skills are lost to the wider
economy.
Nonetheless, "Team Wales" has been
constructive at all stages and is committed to transforming St
Athan into an Aerospace Centre of excellence employing a significant
number of people in well paid jobs. With this very much in mind,
following the End to End review announcement a joint inter-Government
Working Group between Welsh Assembly Government and the MoD was
formed, with representation from the Wales Office and the DTI,
to take the St Athan project forward. This Working Group operates
from a permanent project office on the St Athan site with dedicated
human and financial resource from both parties. The MoD has been
extremely supportive in this endeavour and we are grateful for
their continued commitment.
The joint Government team has been actively
marketing the aerospace park and as a result, there has been and
continues to be interest from a number of aerospace operators.
The development recently secured its first two civil aerospace
occupiers, ATC Lasham and the TES Group. DARA's efforts in making
the Twin Peaks building available for ATC Lasham's occupation
within a prohibitively short time-scale are particularly to be
applauded in the circumstances.
However, it is a fact of life that efforts to
attract corporate players are bound to be affected by the uncertainty
over DARA's long term presence at the site, with all this implies
in terms of retaining the critical mass of skilled labour needed
to make a long term success of the aerospace park concept. Notwithstanding
this, the Welsh Assembly Government and its Team Wales partners
are totally committed to doing everything that needs to be done
to give St Athan a new future in the Knowledge Economy. MoD support
for this, now and in the future, will be indispensable.
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