Teen beauty spot drinkers are ramblers, not rebels
- Dave Burrows
RAF Cosford’s future secured
Tuesday 19th October 2010, 3:30PM BST.
RAF Cosford was today saved from a massive jobs blow after the Government announced it was scrapping plans to move defence training to South Wales.
Campaigners claimed victory after Defence Secretary Liam Fox said the plans were no longer “affordable”. Mr Fox said preferred bidder Metrix consortium, which was awarded £1 billion to create a defence training super centre at St Athan, could no longer deliver a “commercially robust” project.
The decision on the Defence Training Rationalisation Project opens up the possibility of studies for a much lower-cost replacement.
Wrekin Tory MP Mark Pritchard said: “This is fantastic news. I have worked tirelessly for many years to get this defence programme scrapped which was bad news for the nation as well as bad news for RAF Cosford and Shropshire.
“I am glad the Defence Secretary has listened to my petitions and arguments and has been brave enough to scrap the scheme.
“I would like to pay tribute to all those in the community who never lost faith or hope in believing I was doing the right thing in fighting this ill-thought through defence project.
“The future now is far more certain for Cosford as a result of this statement. And whilst changes to all defence establishments are kept under review, the scrapping of DTR has given Cosford a much longer lease of life than under the past Labour government.”
Robert “H” O’Harney, Public and Commercial Services branch secretary at Cosford, said: “We welcome the news this programme has collapsed as it was never affordable from the start.”
It has been estimated the livelihoods of about 30,000 people in Staffordshire and Shropshire depend on continued operation of the de-fence training centre at the base. Mr Fox said the Ministry of Defence would go back to the drawing board.
“We will now carry out some work before finalising the best way ahead; including to confirm both our training and estates requirement, and the best way to structure the solution that will meet them,” he said.
RAF Cosford’s future was put in doubt last year after the contract to become the principal training centre for all three armed forces — and with it, the creation of at least 2,500 jobs – was awarded to RAF St Athan.
By London Reporter Sunita Patel and Wayne Beese
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This is good news for the Shropshire and Telford area. I think it’s a bit rich for Mark Pritchard MP to be claiming the credit though; the simple truth is that a super-duper, mega-expensive training centre elsewhere was always going to be in doubt once the scale of required spending cuts was made known.
People need to ‘thank’ the poor financial state the country is in – not a self publicising MP.
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Too right.
Pritchard shows himself to be a pompous self-important blowhard.
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Tripe.
Mark Pritchard has done more for local jobs (especially defence jobs) than his neighbouring Labour MP David Wright.
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Great news for the local economy.
Having served at St Athan and Cosford. Cosford wins hands down. A great camp in a fantastic area.
Common sence has prevailed for once
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A great day for all of us ex Cosfords Brats
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This headline, the article and Mark Pritchard’s reaction are very misleading. Check out exactly what the Secretary of State said in his announcement this morning. To quote “Technical training, collocated on as few sites as possible, remains in our view the best solution for our Armed Forces. Equally, St Athan was previously chosen as the best location on which to collocate that training for good reasons, and we still hope to base our future defence training solution there.”
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Good point. Although that sounds like more of a conciliatory statement by the Secretary of State to appease all those in South Wales who thought 2,000 jobs were coming to the area. And to assist Cheryl Gillan, the Secretary of State for Wales who is currently little more than a puppet (and seemingly a figure of hate for most people living in Wales).
The statement that they still hope to base their ‘future’ defence training solution in St Athan is rather nebulous at best. There’s going to be no money available for it for years, hence it’ll probably never happen while this Government in power.
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Pritchard to nothing to help this to be fair, he should not bew taking the credit and no minister should be, because this decision ultimatley came from the joint chiefs of staff for themilitary and the cabinet.
Not some unliked MP in Telford….
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Mark Pritchard is a joke….all down to him?
If there’s a band, he’ll find a wagon to jump on. That aside, thought it was a bit one sided of the BBC (as usual) going all ‘soppy’ about St Athan ‘losing out’ on the new base. Not a word said about Cosford workers keeping theirs’.
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