News story

Go ahead for new Royal Marines' facilities at Devonport

The project will deliver facilities at Weston Mill Lake, including two new buildings, marina, jetty and slipway. One building will be a base…

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The project will deliver facilities at Weston Mill Lake, including two new buildings, marina, jetty and slipway. One building will be a base for HQ for both 10 (Landing Craft) Training Squadron Royal Marines and 539 Assault Squadron Royal Marines, as well as training rooms and waterside facilities.

The other building will house landing craft and mechanical transport engineering workshops, with a large expanse of hard-standing available for landing craft storage.

Lt Col Paul Clark RM said:

Creating these new facilities will allow the Royal Marines to train and operate more efficiently in using landing craft, cementing Devonport’s position as a national centre of excellence in this area.

The slipway and jetty will provide landing craft launch and recovery facilities and include a mobile craft hoist capable of lifting landing craft out of the water. Existing pontoons will be extended, providing extra landing craft berthing, as well as coxswain training and refuelling facilities.

The project will establish a waterfront base for elements of 1 Assault Group Royal Marines and the embarked Assault Groups, allowing Royal Marines personnel to re-locate from sites at Turnchapel and Poole. This relocation will allow the future of RM Turnchapel to be considered.

DIO Project Manager Jonathan Hart said:

DIO’s top priority is supporting our Armed Forces in preparing for operations. We are delighted to have reached the point where we’ve been able to award this contract to Debut.

It has taken a lot of hard work with the Royal Marines to pull together the detailed plans which have allowed this important project to progress to this stage.

Paul Nix, Debut’s Core Works Director added

Our team has been working on this complex scheme for some time, and we are extremely pleased that we have now been awarded the contract to build these new facilities.

We have already proven our ability in providing an offer within the required timescales and to budget forecast, enabling our Client and Customer to meet their requirements; we now look forward to continuing to work with DIO and the Royal Marines in delivering this hugely important project.

Planning permission and statutory marine consent for the new facilities were granted in June and July 2011 respectively and work on the project should start on site in October 2011. Construction should then complete in December 2012 with RM occupancy commencing in early 2013.

Published 11 August 2011