UK puts £500m into military infrastructure

Landmarc Support Services, a joint venture between Amentum and Mitie, has been awarded a £560m contract by the UK Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) to manage the country’s military training areas. The deal, which covers 156,000 hectares, includes 16 major training areas and 104 minor training areas, and is expected to sustain over 1,300 jobs aligned with the Defence Training Estate. The contract will also provide troops with approximately one million bed spaces and four million meals per year.

The UK Minister for Defence Procurement, James Cartlidge, stated that the training estate plays a “crucial role” in preparing UK military forces for operations and also supports foreign countries seeking to use the capability. This includes Ukraine, where over 10,000 recruits have undergone a battlefield infantry course at sites in the UK, before returning to their homeland to conduct operations against Russian forces. The UK has also provided specialist armoured vehicle training to Ukrainian tank crews, prior to the delivery of 14 Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine.

Landmarc will provide UK and visiting armed forces facilities to enable military training exercises to take place. The shrinking UK defence estate was also discussed. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has raised nearly £700m in sales proceeds from defence estate disposals since Q4 2016. The sales effort is being carried out under the Defence Estate Optimisation portfolio, formed in November 2016 as part of a 25-year strategy to modernise the defence estate.

The DIO contract is expected to help reduce the maintenance and upkeep costs of the MoD’s various defence sites. This could be achieved through consolidating more numerous bases into larger sites, which could also raise significant revenues for defence at a time when budgets are stretched across government. The UK training estate covers around 1% of the country’s land and is vital in preparing UK military forces for operations.