MoD may restart £12bn job

The Ministry of Defence is considering reinstating plans for a £12bn training facility at St Athan in Wales, despite pulling the plug on the project in the Strategic Defence Review last month.

The Metrix consortium, which includes Laing O’Rourke and Currie & Brown, was to have built and run the project to combine existing training centres into one huge facility in St Athan.

David Olney, deputy chief executive of Defence Estates, said the project was scrapped because of the prohibitive cost of the overall PFI deal on the table, but a new scheme could be pursued on the same site.

He said: “We’re going to take stock, and hopefully come forward with a new proposal before the end of the financial year [next March]. Then we’ll restart a procurement process.”