Clyde shipyard welcome £15m contract for work on aircraft carriers

Jul 30 2010

HMS Queen Elizabeth

WORKERS at Glasgow's shipyards yesterday welcomed a s15million contract to install cables on sections of two new aircraft carriers being part-built on the Clyde.

The money, invested by the Aircraft Carrier Alliance (ACA), has been awarded to Balfour Beatty Engineering Services.

Workers will fit cables on the sections of the two Queen Elizabeth Class carriers which are being built at Govan before being transported to Rosyth in Fife, where the 65,000-tonne vessels will be put together.

The HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales are due to enter service in 2016 and around 2018 respectively, at an estimated cost of s5 billion.

This week the Alliance awarded four contracts to seven suppliers who will provide a number of vital services and parts for the ships.

As well as the s15 million contract to Balfour Beatty Engineering Services, a contract worth more than s44,000 was awarded to Glasgow-based Edmundson Electrical Ltd for component parts called glands, which are used to pack and make airtight the cables that run throughout the ships.

ACA programme director Geoff Searle said: "The Aircraft Carrier Alliance has been making excellent progress over the last 12 months, both in the build of the Queen Elizabeth and across the supply chain.

"We have currently placed around s1.25 billion worth of contracts with companies right across the UK, which means that the majority of contracts to supply parts for these impressive ships have now been agreed.

"Earlier this week, we officially welcomed Cammell Laird in Birkenhead on to the build programme when the first vertical steel plate for the flight deck was laid at the Merseyside facility.

"This means that all six UK shipyards involved in the programme have now begun work and it's great to see such tangible progress being made."

The two ships will be 280m (918ft) long with capacity for 40 aircraft.

Each ship will have a crew of 679 and, including the air group, the total number of people on board would be 1,600.