UK Defense Procurement Agency Takes Ownership Of New Storage Facility
The United Kingdom’s defense procurement agency has taken ownership of a new warehouse facility for Ministry of Defence assets, in what it says is a “strategic improvement” of the UK’s defense readiness and resilience, as well as improvements to supply chain operations.
Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) will operate the £98.5 million Longtown Defence Storage Facility, with the 76,000m² site in Cumbria used to store “a broad range of mission-critical operational materiel and inventory, such as large spare parts used by the British Army, Royal Air Force and Royal Navy”.
The new warehouse will also improve the ability of the existing Defence Fulfilment Centres in Donnington, Shropshire and Bicester, Oxfordshire to meet surges in demand, with improvements to the rail network on the site making it easier to move material in and out through the national rail network to other Ministry of Defence facilities.
DE&S announced on April 30 that it had conducted a handover event for the facility, with a symbolic key passed from builders McLaughlin & Harvey to DE&S, which runs the site in partnership with Leidos and supply chain specialists Kuehne + Nagel as “Team Leidos”. A formal opening ceremony is planned for later this year.
According to DE&S, the new facility was designed with sustainability and long term resilience in mind, with the use of green technologies and practices such as energy efficient lighting, automated climate control, recyclable packaging solutions, and recycling of rainwater for use in washrooms.
Les Millar, DE&S Logistics, Services and Commodities (LSC) Head of Strategy and Special Projects, said:
“The completion of the build phase of the MOD’s Longtown Defence Storage Facility marks a leap forward in our storage of materiel to support all parts of the armed forces, giving us a state of the art environmentally efficient facility to store significant amount of parts and spares for Defence platforms, enabling us to be better prepared for the military threats faced, both today and for the foreseeable future.”
“The successful completion of a 76,000m² warehouse within the Ministry of Defence’s national storage network wasn’t just another build – it was the delivery of critical national infrastructure within a live, high-security environment,” said Paul Griffen, managing director of McLaughlin & Harvey. “Our team worked in close partnership with all stakeholders, ensuring minimal disruption to the daily operations of the base. This project highlights our capability in the defence sector and ongoing commitment to supporting the United Kingdom’s armed forces to remain ready, responsive and resilient.”