Blow for £15bn St Athan academy

Jan 31 2008 Tomos Livingstone, Western Mail

PART of a huge £15bn defence training academy ear-marked for St. Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan is being ditched

The two-part project would have seen all UK defence training centralised in south Wales.

But the second part of the scheme, dealing with logistics, photography, administration, policing and language training, is not now going ahead.

It was worth up to £5bn and would have seen 4,500 personnel trained on site.

The rest of the scheme is going ahead as planned, and will see the army, navy and air force trained at a new site in St Athan, due to be opened in 2013. 5,000 jobs will be created as a result.

Defence Minister Bob Ainsworth said the St Athan team was unable to provide an “affordable” way of delivering the second package.