BBC Article Claims St Athan Favourite for New Training Centre
 

Hopes for 5,000 jobs at RAF base
BBC News
26th October 2006

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/image...athan1_203.jpg
An artist's impression of how the military academy would look

RAF St Athan is favourite to win one of the biggest government investments into Wales, creating up to 5,000 jobs, the BBC has been told.

It is understood the site in the Vale of Glamorgan is now the leading contender to win much of a tender for a £14bn military training academy.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/6089104.stm

Well shock horror, massive development in south Wales, just in time for the various local, European and general elections. Oh and did I mention that St Athan is in the Vale of Glamorgan constituency, which is held by Labour and is one of the least safe seats in the Commons (Lab majority 1808, the 572nd safest seat).

Anyone else smell a Noo Labour rat?

What a brilliant idea. Take a readily accessible training establishment, easy to get to from all points of the compass, and with all the facilities it needs, then plonk it down in a corner of South Wales and spend billions achieving the same set-up.:ugh:

What a load of crap. Let's hope common sense prevails.

Do not be ridiculous.

Creating 5,000 jobs?? What about the other farking jobs that will be lost from the real and current training establishments??! I give up, I bloody well give up.

Its the old Chivenor-to-Brawdy-and-back-again trick.
Leave it there long enough to appease the Viet Taff and then find a perfectly good reason to return things to the original location.

And when did common sense start to have anything to do with the decisions of the noo loonys?

Is this for phase 1 or phase 2 training? With the slant of the article and Cosford getting a mention I'm assuming phase 2.

What exactly is wrong with DCAE Cosford again???? Nothing that a lot less than £14bn wouldn't fix?? Oh I understand..... :uhoh: :\ :ugh:

Noo Liabour has been having problems with the Taffs. They are revolting - not enough are voting for Big Tone, as they've discovered there are other boxes on the ballot that they can also put their X in. Some have been voting for independent Labour, and others have voted for Plaid Cmryu. This will not do, so the decision has been taken to buy their votes back at a cost of £14Bn.

But it's in Wales.

I think it's a brilliant idea, or as we say if we only want to speak to a very small part of the UK population who btw can all speak English, "Syniad Ardderchog!"

CG

Pontius: But it's in Wales.

CG: Me too.

Its not often one sees St Athan and "favourite" in the same sentence. Dump.

forgive me for my ignorance as I have been out of the services for some time now, but are most of the facilities being touted by this scheme not already available elsewhere?

In which case can the vast amounts of money not be spent on more worthwhile projects like giving you guys the correct kit for your environment when you need it etc etc?

Just a thought

Of course one of the main reasons that many technical schools don't go to Wales is that, under Welsh Language Laws, all Teaching Staff MUST speak Welsh!

I wonder how many Technical Staff Applications will be thrown out at this Hurdle?

Yachydah! (I think!)

But surely most technical stuff is in English anyway, not Druidic? I recall from my days at Valley that conversations between mechanics at Jones-the-motor often involved the usual hawking and grunting which the Taffia think of as a language, interspersed with more technical terms.

No doubt the same would be true of aircraft?

"RB199 gnbwyllc chwynn llchmw ddffrw Fuel Flow Regulator gwyn chwblch wbbll Digital Computer bryn chwdbr bbllchs....etc etc"

Look you. Isn't it.

Would I be correct in thinking that those based at Valley qualify for Day School Allowance so that their children aren't forced to learn Welsh? Presumably the same will need to be offered to those who are based at this new place? I wonder whether those costs have been factored-in? The more I see of these types of project, the less they make sense.

STH

And who are Metrix? Are they this lot www.metrix.com based in Wisconsin, or this bogbrush company from NZ www.metrix.co.nz. And I wonder if there is any connection with Multiplex from Oz, noted and succesful stadium builders.

More from the Beeb
 

RAF base bid 'exceptional' - Hain
BBC News
27 October 2006

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/image...athan2_203.jpg
An artist's impression of how the military academy would look

Welsh Secretary Peter Hain has said a proposed £14bn military training academy at St Athan would be a massive boost for the whole of south Wales.

The BBC understands RAF St Athan, Vale of Glamorgan, is the leading contender for a UK government investment which could create up to 5,000 jobs.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/6089716.stm

Strap in, more turbulence!
 

What about the "Blue suit instructors", does this mean they will have to learn Welsh? Yeah right.
You see those two hangers? we'll be using the one in the middle!
DS

Ah - Hain. That rabble-rousing POS who initiated all the anti-South African rubbish (including the Stop the Seventy (Cricket) Tour) when I was at University....

If it's come from him, it will truly be bolleaux....or 'bllchs'?

Interesting that the aritst's sketches don't show the grey, horizontal rain sweeping up the Bristol Channel for which RAF St. Athan is infamously known.

Rigga

It's balls to suggest that all teaching staff must be able to speak Welsh. Eighty percent of Welsh schools would shut tomorrow were that the case. Ditto the universities.

No-one, including yours truly, is a fluent Welsh speaker at my school. An' I'm the Head. (Already done all the call me Dick jokes)

BEags, with Welsh like yours, you'd get by.

CG

Who knows it won't come to Wales.

I am a DCAE brain trainer and I refuse to speak 'Who's coat is this jacket hanging on the floor?'
If the DTR comes up with VietTaff as the best solution my long standing Taffia corruption/moneylaundering/protection/pimping/holidayhomecentralheating theory will be finally proven. :ugh:

Metrix is one of 2 consortia (is that correct Latin?), MC3 is the other, that are bidding for the DTR Public Private Partnership to provide all ground technical training for the 3 Services, the so-called package 1 (Package 2 is DCLPA and such). The preferred bidder was due to be announced next month so there's a bit of a leak here (oh how droll!) methinks. As this is all planned to come to fruition around 2012 after I've retired from the light blue I guess I shouldn't be concerned. Still, I quite like Lincolnshire and have only been to Saints once, not sure whether I'd like to go there again or not, but its academic in my case - not, however, to some of my colleagues.

Of course the taffia option would have nothing to do with the DARA "white elephant" hanger etc would it? Having spent £X millions developing an in depth maintenance facility and then deciding to change the whole approach to maintenance?

You might also have noted that Cosford is in a Tory marginal constituency, where the sitting MP has a majority of 948...

There has, I gather, been quite a lot of adverse comment in the local press covering the Cosford area about the St Athan bid and the involvement of the Welsh Assembly in talking up the prospects of that consortium (along with hints about how not giving St Athan the contract would be a disaster). I daresay Mr Hain's intervention will receive some more comment.

When we achieve total independance, which we definately will in due course, we will charge the English government a fee for each and every military person who crosses the bridge on the way to St Athan for their training, and we will also charge a very attractive rental fee for the use of the St Athan facility.

And the over-fly trips of our land will also be billed to Whitehall.

Indeed, we are working on a huge raft of fees which we will be accruing.

The colossal rip off of our country over the centuries is soon about to end, and the compensation start to flow westwards over the bridge.

Good times ahead for Viet-Taff.:D

Do you really think the base would still be in Wales if you
became independent.

We would simply move it elsewhere and I am sure Wales
would become a left wing socialist state with no military
but more money for single mothers and immigrants.

That would be a complete reversal of policy. It is free to enter Wales but it costs to get out. Mind you that might be an English plot :}

Wrong, actually. You have to pay to get into Wales, but not on the way out.

Much as you do for any other zoo.

There's lovely. Isn't it.

Taffy gonna need a bigger boat for all these fish!

CG

CG and Dodgysumpy,

I have friend who was refused employment at a Welsh College (in Wales!) as she could not speak Welsh. She is/was a trained and experienced "English as a Foreign Language" Teacher. Welsh not involved - as the teaching for this subject does not include speaking the students' languages. (I am told)
My friend was told that it is Welsh Language Law that Educators must be Welsh Speakers. I believe that Technical Colleges are also subject to this Law even if the subject itself is not taught, or even available, in Welsh.

And another thing - Blue Suits! - in a future MOD Training School? - You must be joking? It would be better to assume little or no Uniformed involvement below Squabbling Level. This is also another PFI/PP set-up by Tonies Cronies - of which I expect some sort of Board membership to be announced after June next year. Just another money-spinner.

The only reason Satan (Freudian keyboard slip) is being promoted is due to EU development money putting an inordinate 10 year bias on the finances.

As a sideline - have you ever tried to get a book on jet engine theory in Dutch? - almost as bad as welsh - but at least there are some!

Unfortunately your friend is talking out of their 'rusty bullet hole'! My wife (who is from Kent) teaches in Wales & speaks no Welsh.Welsh is a core subject in Wales (funny old thing!) & some schools do teach all subjects through the medium of the Welsh language.
"Ah - Hain. That rabble-rousing POS who initiated all the anti-South African rubbish (including the Stop the Seventy (Cricket) Tour) when I was at University...."
Beags,do you mean that lovely fluffy Apartheid regime that used to murder,torture & internally exile its own citizens ?

Sure the apartheid regime was pretty awful - but how did trendy-leftie rabble rousing anti-cricket tour and anti-Barclay's Bank demonstrations help?

Of course Hain's fellow traveller Straw was NUS president at the time when we had all that student unrest in the early 1970s.....

St Athan will also be home to Torchwood. :}

http://static.flickr.com/72/178014155_6775f87dab.jpg

Spent 9 months in this dump doing my fitters course in 1980. It doesn't look any better. My commiseration to anyone sent there :sad:

Pretty awful! Bit of an understatement there!
Its all about ethics don't you know,such as in where money is invested,wether or not people are discriminated against.You see they could'nt demonstrate on the streets of Soweto,the police were in the habit of shooting people dead.
Believe Hain had some first hand knowledge as he was educated in South Africa.

Done deal
 

This was a done deal from the moment Metrix decided to use St Athan.
It is political, diabolical and disgusting.
The jobs promised to the Welsh can only come about if instructors and staff presently working at Cosford (in my opinion the best place for this by far) do not move to the new site. That is jobs for the welsh in direct proportion to the jobless in the midlands!
The MOD is showing its true colours on this one

Makes no sense to the thousands of trainees who will have to pay a toll every time they go home for the weekend, and travel hundreds more miles if they're from oop north, than the pretty central location of Cosford.

Not forgetting the history of RAF training - we don't have a long one, but it'd be nice to keep what we have!

Any idea what's wrong with Cosford as a training site?

Rubbish. If you are from Gloucester then it is easy......................................
Look B4265 onto A4226 for about 6 miles then take the A48 for 14 miles before a very short spell on the B4237 before coming back onto the A48, B4237, A449, A40, A417, A4301, Westgate Street, right onto Upper Quay Street, left onto Bearland, Continue forward onto Longsmith Street, turn right onto Ladybellegate Street and finally onto the A4301. voila no bridge no toll.:hmm: