Comments on What Is Wales And What Is It For?: What defence for the arms trade?

not for militarism see http://metrixconsortium.blo...

2007-09-30T15:57:00.000Z

not for militarism see
http://metrixconsortium.blogspot.com/
http://www.nomurderacademyatstathans.com/
http://www.cynefinywerin.org.uk/
we habe leanne woods protesting against privatisng cardiff bus but shes all for st athans the biggest privitisation ever and of military traing wuth huge implications for wales

The South Wales Echo contacted Metrix about the ca...

2007-07-27T12:51:00.000Z

The South Wales Echo contacted Metrix about the campaign being organised against the training academy.
A spokesman for Metrix told the newspaper: "We are working hard to create a world-leading facility in St Athan which promises to unlock the potential of the many thousands of young people who will be selected to study there.
"The academy will create 5,000 jobs and will inject, at a conservative estimate, around £60m into the local economy every year."”

Story also covered here:http://cardiffrespect.blog...

2007-07-27T08:43:00.000Z

Story also covered here:
http://cardiffrespect.blogspot.com/2007/07/stop-cardiff-bay-incinerator.html

The best thing to do at this stage is to bombard Rodney Berman, Leader of the Council with email objections.

Typically, he claims it has nothing to do with him and is all in the hands of a planning committee

Theoretician...Will have a read of your blogGreg

2007-07-24T19:43:00.000Z

Theoretician...

Will have a read of your blog

Greg

Please help the campaign to stop the building of a...

2007-07-24T16:52:00.000Z

Please help the campaign to stop the building of a waste incinerator in Cardiff Bay. Cardiff Council is trying to cover the plan up by calling it a thermal energy plant and similar things and have even called the plan 'project green' - you couldn't make it up!
See:-
http://cardiffincinerator.blogspot.com/

Our election campaign was rather modest - we don't...

2007-07-24T13:45:00.000Z

Our election campaign was rather modest - we don't have the publicity machines or access to media coverage of the big 4 parties. We only stood in two regional constituencies.

While the Echo and Western Mail were filled with jubilation about the Military Academy, to be honest, I don't think their has been much public interest outside of the Vale of Glam. on the Military Academy, but most people who oppose the war we spoke to were supportive of our stance when we explained the links between the Academy and the wider issues such as the War on Terror. It was also rather easy to knock down the argument over the development creating jobs. We also posed the question as to why their is always billions for anything related to the military but not to create socially useful jobs.

Couldn't the billions being spent on St. Athan's not be better used to fund the schools in Cardiff threatened with closure? Or on paying the fees of students? Or on decent council houses?

There are a lot of jobs that could be created building affordable housing, upgrading and extending public services and on things that would be useful to working people rather than oiling the military machine to train new recruits for the war on terror.

Yes, interesting to note herehttps://www.blogger.c...

2007-07-24T12:09:00.000Z

Yes, interesting to note here
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=18080986&postID=5298054256725792024
that John Smith - the "Olympic bid" quote man - has been told about a "significant affordability gap":

Military Bases: Wales
John Smith: "To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the timetable is for the construction and occupation of the new military training academy at MOD St. Athan."

Derek Twigg (junior defence minister): "Metrix Consortium have been declared the preferred bidder for package 1 of the Defence training review programme.
"For package 2 there is a significant affordability gap and work has been ongoing to develop a whole programme solution.
"The scale of the facility to be constructed at St. Athan will therefore depend on the outcome of this further work with Metrix.
"Our current forecast indicates that construction at the St. Athan site is planned to start after contract signature in late 2008, or early 2009, with the final phase of completion scheduled for 2013."

Will this ever happen though - have you seen the a...

2007-07-23T20:01:00.000Z

Will this ever happen though - have you seen the amount of infrastructure that has to go in first.Houses will be needed on site and roads need to be sorted.These phases wont be covered by the contracts
read this http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmwelaf/1129/1129.pdf
Metrix Consortium won contracts to provide services at St Athan near Cardiff and HMS Sultan, Gosport. The first of two packages under the deal will see training for 6,500 personnel transferred to the two sites over five years from 2008. The second, also won by Metrix, will involve training for 4,500 currently spread across 18 sites in the UK. Some 10,000 recruits from the Army, Navy and RAF will all be trained at the academy, which aims to be fully operational by 2013. Its estimated value of around £16bn is equivalent to the Welsh assembly's entire annual budget. For Welsh Secretary Peter Hain it was simply "fantastic news". He said: "These are very high class jobs, permanent jobs for generations to come with a state-of-the-art defence academy bringing all the three forces, RAF, Army and Navy, together and south Wales is the world class facility chosen."
It is hoped the economic benefits would reverberate across south Wales. "[The plans] are absolutely huge. It will be the biggest single investment ever in Wales of any kind. It will be by far bigger, for example, than the entire London Olympic bid." Basic training will not be covered but what is known as Phase 2 and 3 training - teaching personnel their trades in areas ranging from aeronautical engineering and communications and information systems.
A new campus will be needed which is likely to employ 4,000 although not all will be new jobs as some will be relocated from existing training establishments around the UK. However, it is thought it the base will create 1,500 jobs in the wider economy as well 1,500 construction jobs in order to build it. RAF St Athan officially opened in 1938 and in the post-war years grew into one of the UK's largest RAF bases. But its fortunes recently took a nosedive with a series of job cuts and false dawns. In February, the Defence Aviation Repair Agency (Dara) confirmed it would go ahead with a £77m high-tech aircraft repair and maintenance centre - securing 2,100 jobs. Called Project Red Dragon, it aimed to develop a world-class aviation centre, but despite the opening in 2005 of a super-hangar, much of the work went elsewhere. In 2004, the announcement came that 550 jobs were being lost at RAF St Athan and just six months later a warning was issued that it could close altogether. A further blow was dealt in November 2005 when more jobs cuts were announced.

So some jobs are being replaced, some are displacments.
It would be interesting to see what econometric modelling was used for this.
Also to see why Cosford lost

Hi Respectable Citizen,What sort of reaction did y...

2007-07-23T18:24:00.000Z

Hi Respectable Citizen,

What sort of reaction did you get from the public when you opposed the military training academy?

Greg

RESPECT was the only political party in Wales to o...

2007-07-23T18:15:00.000Z

RESPECT was the only political party in Wales to oppose St Athan's in its election literature.

Unlike Plaid, Labour, LibDems, Tories who all slavishly supported it.

Ironic that certain Welsh politicians jet to Faslane to demonstrate in Scotland, but refuse to oppose the war on terror in their own backyard!

Greg,I've now pulled up your story and put it on a...

2007-07-23T17:49:00.000Z

Greg,

I've now pulled up your story and put it on as a full posting - to give it as wide a chance as poss for people to see what's going on it - while crediting you with revealing it

HiThanks for the interest.I will keep an eye on th...

2007-07-23T17:16:00.000Z

Hi
Thanks for the interest.
I will keep an eye on that.

Greg

Greg, Thanks for highlighting this.I've just flagg...

2007-07-23T14:32:00.000Z

Greg,

Thanks for highlighting this.

I've just flagged it up in the debate to the posting I've made on Concentric Circles.