My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Derek Twigg) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
Ministers have now approved the redevelopment of Whittington Barracks, Lichfield, for use by the Defence Medical Services (DMS) and I am today announcing the next steps.
The assessment phase of the Midlands medical accommodation project has been completed. We have concluded that the strategic, operational, economic and personnel benefits of the project will fully justify an investment of around £200 million over the next few years.
Co-location on the Whittington site of the DMS headquarters and the Defence Medical Services Training Centre (DMSTC, currently based near Aldershot) will give us a critical mass of military medical expertise and assets in the Midlands. The area will be reinforced as the central focus for British military medicine, and Lichfield will provide the future military home for the DMS.
Our project assessment confirmed that the Whittington site offers excellent potential for meeting DMS needs. A combination of new build and upgrading of existing buildings will provide ample high-quality, fit-for-purpose accommodation, training and sports facilities, within easy travelling distance of central Birmingham and the RCDM elements that will remain there. The Whittington site also offers an adjacent military training area. Full planning approval for the redevelopment of the site has already been granted.
The project will be delivered in three increments:
an HQ office building;
new and refurbished training accommodation; combined officers’ and senior NCOs’ mess; junior ranks’ dining room; training centre; and lecture theatre; and
delivery of 811 single living accommodation bed spaces.
Increment one will involve the relocation to Lichfield of key management elements of the DMS, whose top structure is currently being reorganised as part of the DMS top structures next steps programme.
Development of a new strategic medical HQ and the HQ for the recently established Joint Medical Command (JMC) is now in progress. We are planning to locate these HQs at Lichfield by 1 April 2010 (although a small number of strategic medical HQ staff will remain in London). The HQ of the JMC will comprise staffs currently based at Fort Blockhouse, Gosport, who were formerly part of the Defence Medical Education and Training Agency; Defence Dental Services HQ staffs from RAF Halton, Buckinghamshire; the Defence Healthcare Directorate from central London; and elements of the RCDM HQ from Birmingham.
We shall place a contract later this year for the construction at Whittington of a purpose-built office block and associated site infrastructure works. We shall announce further details when this contract is placed. By early 2010 we expect that the site will be supporting over 300 military and civilian personnel in total. Almost 200 of these will be military and civilian posts transferred from central London, Gosport and Halton. Some posts will also be relocated from the RCDM HQ in central Birmingham.
Increments two and three will see the relocation of the DMSTC from Keogh Barracks, Aldershot, to Lichfield, and the provision of training facilities and living accommodation for over 800 staff and trainees. Existing facilities need to be replaced with accommodation that is fit for the 21st century.
The move of DMSTC will be completed between 2012 and 2014. The precise date will be decided in due course. By the end of the project there will be over 1,100 Defence Medical Services personnel at Lichfield, including up to 700 trainees, as well as over 100 personnel attached to lodger units that we expect to remain on the site.
There will be full consultation with the trades unions as the work on the new organisations and their co-location at Lichfield proceeds.
The new jobs that this project will bring to the Midlands over the next few years will also help to fulfil our policy objective of moving jobs out of the greater south-east.
The decisions announced today about military medical accommodation in the Midlands are further evidence of the Government’s commitment to the healthcare of service personnel. I shall keep the House informed of progress with this important project.