Plans for St Athan PFI go in May 8

Double time allowed to deal with St Athan Defence Technical ...

PLANS for the 12bn Defence Technical College at St Athan will be formally submitted to Vale of Glamorgan planners on May 8. Boxes of the plans will be taken ...

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Double time allowed to deal with St Athan Defence Technical College plans

Apr 16 2009 by Peter Collins, South Wales Echo

PLANS for the £12bn Defence Technical College at St Athan will be formally submitted to Vale of Glamorgan planners on May 8.

Boxes of the plans will be taken to the Vale council offices in Barry and handed over to planners at the start of a 16-week study of the proposal.

The plan is one of the biggest ever dealt with by Vale of Glamorgan Council.

Its size means planners will have four months to decide on a recommendation, rather than the normal two months.

Although there has already been a series of public exhibitions of the plan, the public consultation on the scheme will involve more public displays throughout the Vale.

Opponents who have complained that the public consultation to date has been a “sham” will have the opportunity to submit their formal written objections and comments to the Vale planning committee.

Mike Grimmel, leader of the Metrix Property team, which has drawn up the plans , said: “As well as providing technical training, the DTC will also become a home for students during their time here. Accordingly, it will be important to provide all the facilities necessary to support them and keep them occupied outside of the training day. These will include first class sports and leisure facilities, a shop, a pub and places where students can relax and socialise.”

If approved, the new college will incorporate a diverse range of buildings, including a significantly refurbished Red Dragon Hangar together with purpose-built classroom and lecturing facilities, all of which will have been designed to ensure students benefit from the very best in modern technical training.

Relaunch of training review in the works

Relaunch of training review in the works
Friday, September 12, 2008

Officials from the Metrix consortium and the MoD are attempting to relaunch the Defence Training Review following the deal’s finances all but collapsing in the current financial turmoil.

Defence Management first reported in July that the deal was experiencing a troubled period due to the harsh economic conditions and resistance from the civilian trainers in moving to rural Wales. The consortium, led by QinetiQ, won the £11bn PFI deal in January 2007 to bring together most defence training at one site in St Athan, Wales. The training was to be divided into two packages, but the MoD concluded that the second package was all but unaffordable.

The deal’s finances are heavily dependent on the sale of redundant MoD land as various groups and trainers move from their bases to the St Athan site. Unfortunately the credit crunch has all but levelled the property market, making the value of certain MoD properties far less than financers had predicted when they crunched the numbers in the original business plan a few years ago.

Rising inflation has also contributed to the financial troubles. It is believed that costs could rise by as much as £1bn over the next year.

MoD and consortium officials are now expected to develop a new business plan in the hopes that they can find a way to finance the project without it being so heavily dependent on property sales. A decision on the troubled project could be reached by as early as next week.

In a statement the MoD confirmed there were problems, saying: "A contributory factor adding to the complexity (of talks) has been the impact of the increased cost of borrowing and cost growth. Negotiations with Metrix are ongoing and both parties are working hard to drive down costs and obtain maximum value for money for the taxpayer."

The focus will now turn to what a new financial plan will mean. Union members and MPs have told Defence Management that the DTR is unaffordable in its current form. A new financial model that is not dependent on revenue from land sales will surely mean that additional cuts to the training plans will have to be made.