THE Ministry of Defence has announced that the £8 billion project to transform Salisbury Plain military garrisons has been awarded to Aspire Defence.

The deal, lasting many years, is the biggest ever defence private finance initiative and will have a major impact on the military buildings at Tidworth and Perham Down.

Under the Project Allenby contract between Aspire Defence and the MoD around 40 per cent of the garrison in Tidworth will be replaced and after that Aspire will have a 35-year deal to manage the area.

The Aspire company, a partnership between Halliburton subsidiary KBR and Carillion plc, has already started work on the project and demolition work on some buildings is under way to enable 2nd Royal Tank Regiment to move to new barracks in Tidworth in July 2007.

One of the buildings to be renewed is the garrison theatre. In a farewell message outgoing garrison commander Col Carron Snagge said: "The next six years are going to be difficult with the garrison inundated with contractors and, no doubt, the operational tempo continuing unabated.

"However, Lucknow Barracks show what life will be like for the single soldiers and in the end it will be worth the aggravation."

Tidworth Town Council has welcomed the deal after being informed on Tuesday evening of its impending signage although there were concerns that there might be confusion over which parts of the Edwardian garrison estate should be saved and listed as heritage buildings.

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