A complete waste of taxpayers money.
They should buy new helicopters that provide serviceability and longevity in the form of return of service. The Puma fleet is cream crackered, but the funds to replace will not exist whereas the funds to refurbish will. Once upon a time both 'funds' would have come from the same pot. This is a short term reponse to a problem that has existed for decades, but then which MOD decisions nowadays have any forsight in them?
It is a disgrace. They are suggesting that in the future we fly 53 year old aircraft that have been flogged to death; Aviation as an institution is only 100 years old!