{"id":970,"date":"2016-05-24T22:25:58","date_gmt":"2016-05-24T22:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/?p=970"},"modified":"2016-05-24T22:25:58","modified_gmt":"2016-05-24T22:25:58","slug":"defence-minister-sees-carrier-preparations-at-portsmouth-naval-base","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/2016\/05\/24\/defence-minister-sees-carrier-preparations-at-portsmouth-naval-base\/","title":{"rendered":"DEFENCE MINISTER SEES CARRIER PREPARATIONS AT PORTSMOUTH NAVAL BASE"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"UK<\/a><\/p>\n

A Defence Minister visited Portsmouth Naval Base last Monday (23rd of May) to see how it is preparing to accommodate the Royal Navy\u2019s two new 65,000-tonne aircraft carriers.<\/p>\n

Mark Lancaster, Minister for Defence Personnel and Veterans, saw progress on various infrastructure works and in particular a new centre of specialisation which is nearing completion.<\/p>\n

The Queen Elizabeth Class Centre of Specialisation will cover an area of 70,000 square metres \u2013 approximately the size of ten football pitches.<\/p>\n

It will include a 7,000 square metre Forward Support Centre able to hold 15,000 pallets of medical, mail and naval stores under one roof, a caf\u00e9 seating more than 500 people at any one time and a reception centre for all those working on or visiting the carriers.<\/p>\n

The centre will house employees of Team Portsmouth, a partnership between the Ministry of Defence and BAE Systems, with engineers, logisticians and waterfront staff working alongside each other to plan and deliver the maintenance for these ships.<\/p>\n

Mark Lancaster said: “This new Centre of Specialisation will ensure that our highly skilled engineers, logisticians and waterfront staff are well supported, and have the facilities they need as Portsmouth becomes the home of the Queen Elizabeth Class Carriers next year.<\/p>\n

“Our \u00a3100 million investment in the naval base and the arrival of the carriers will support and sustain thousands of jobs across the region.”<\/p>\n

Mike Howarth, Managing Director for BAE Systems Maritime Services in Portsmouth, said: \u201cAt 65,000 tonnes the new carriers are the largest and most complex naval ships built in the UK. It\u2019s essential that they have high quality facilities and highly skilled people to support them.<\/p>\n

“This centre will be the home not just for the carriers, it will also be home for the military and civilian people who support them.<\/p>\n

“With improvements to the jetty and construction of a high voltage power station already in its final stages, you can now see that we are well on the way to being ready for HMS Queen Elizabeth\u2019s arrival next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Commodore Jeremy Rigby, Naval Base Commander, said: \u201cThe work on the Queen Elizabeth Class centre is yet another tangible milestone in getting the Naval Base ready to support our new aircraft carriers.<\/p>\n

“A huge amount of activity is in train ashore and in the harbour to make sure we are ready to receive HMS Queen Elizabeth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are exciting times for the Naval Base and the wider Portsmouth area as we prepare for these huge ships which have secured the future of the base for the rest of the century.<\/p>\n

\u201cBAE Systems is working in partnership with the Royal Navy under the Team Portsmouth banner to improve the QE Class Ships\u2019 Company experience that the carrier\u2019s crew will receive at the waterfront and provide the resources, information, material and facilities they will need in Portsmouth and on operations around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The creation of a dedicated area for the carriers forms part of the overall vision for Portsmouth Naval Base \u2013 four dedicated areas to support the ships based ships.<\/p>\n

The first of these dedicated areas was opened in 2015 as the Centre of Specialisation for Frigates and Destroyers, while work began on minehunter HMS Brocklesby in the new Small Ships Centre of Specialisation in early May.<\/p>\n

Image Sourced : Royal Navy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Defence Minister visited Portsmouth Naval Base last Monday (23rd of May) to see how it is preparing to accommodate the Royal Navy\u2019s two new 65,000-tonne aircraft carriers. Mark Lancaster, Minister for Defence Personnel and Veterans, saw progress on various infrastructure works and in particular a new centre of specialisation which is nearing completion. The… Continue reading DEFENCE MINISTER SEES CARRIER PREPARATIONS AT PORTSMOUTH NAVAL BASE<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[784,45,787,785,786,43],"class_list":["post-970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-watch","tag-bae-systems-maritime-services","tag-hms-queen-elizabeth","tag-minister-for-defence-personnel-and-veterans","tag-portsmouth","tag-queen-elizabeth-class-carriers","tag-royal-navy","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=970"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":972,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions\/972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}