St Athan Project Will Put Wales On World Map - Where It Belongs ; Vale of Glamorgan Mp John Smith Replies to Critics Like the Lib Dems' Vince Cable Who Say the Planned Pounds 13bn St Athan Military Academy Is an Expense We Could Do Without by Explaining How Much It Will Mean for the Economy and for the Global Reputation of Wales: The Thursday Essay

Western Mail › September 24, 2009

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Summary

TODAY, planning permission will be decided on the largest public sector project ever in Wales - the pounds 13bn Defence Technical College (DTC) on the 1,000-acre site at St Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan.

The potential benefits to our country from this investment are enormous. The pounds 500m a year it and associated developments will bring to our economy, the 5,000 direct jobs it will create or, indeed, the countless indirect jobs in the supply chain. For me, the greatest benefit of this record-breaking investment could be a complete makeover of our country's economic reputation worldwide. As someone who was once involved in attracting new investment, I know from experience that reputation is everything. At that time our reputation was at best non-existent or at worst dominated by traditional industries and it did us no good at all. However, when I attended the Farnborough Air Show earlier this year with the Commons Defence Committee, there was not a single MD or CEO of a major international aerospace company who was not acutely aware of the plans for St Athan. Why? Because it could become one of the largest clusters of highly specialised skills in the world.

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St Athan Project Will Put Wales On World Map - Where It Belongs ; Vale of Glamorgan Mp John Smith Replies to Critics Like the Lib Dems' Vince Cable Who Say the Planned Pounds 13bn St Athan Military Academy Is an Expense We Could Do Without by Explaining How Much It Will Mean for the Economy and for the Global Reputation of Wales: The Thursday Essay

The college will be a purpose-built, state-of-the-art facility providing advanced technical training of the three armed forces in aeronautical, mechanical and electrical engineering and inf...

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