Final RAF flight leaves St Athan

Library

The last ever RAF flight leaves St Athan

The last RAF flight out of the MOD St Athan base in Wales will be the final nail in the coffin of a red dragon that never managed to fly. In 2000, the base was a bright hope developed as a centre of excellence to provide a public sector benchmark for aviation work, cutting the cost of maintaining and repairing the UK's military aircraft. MOD built a super hangar for fast jet repair costing £77m. The Defence Aviation Repair Agency was the principal tenant.

At the time, Prospect warned it would become 'a red elephant' because of a switch in policy by the Ministry of Defence, which handed much of its order book to the RAF and planned to lease more equipment from manufacturers, making DARA's facilities and its employees redundant. Privatisation followed.

Sadly the union's concerns were confirmed in 2005 when, despite the investment it was announced that the fast jet business at St Athans was to close with hundreds of jobs to be lost.

In 2010, a £14bn defence training academy, which would have created 2,000 jobs at St Athan was scrapped as part of 8% cuts by the UK government to the defence budget. At that time there were around 400 civilian staff left at the base.

The Welsh government and MOD spent £240m on the base over the last ten years.

National secretary Steve Jary said: "It is yet another example of gross mismanagement by MOD. The hope now is that the skilled workforce left there will be retained locally."