Last updated at 14:19, Friday, 04 July 2008

IT's big. You'll see it on the skyline. It's costing ₤40m and its time has come
JOHN SIMPSON talks to the project manager behind the "Son of DDH", the new state of the art shipbuilding hall which will soon be rising at Barrow shipyard.

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ENGINEERS at Barrow shipyard have ordered what they think is Europe’s biggest door.

The new Central Assembly Shop – or Son of DDH to give its popular name – needs the vast door so high and mighty sections for two new aircraft carriers can one day emerge from it on special transporters for their short journey over Bridge Road to the slipways beside Walney Channel.

Like the Central Assembly Shop building, the doors would have been even bigger, but both were reduced as Barrow’s central chunk of each new aircraft carrier shrank in size.

The Barrow team bidding for the work had originally pushed to build the central section of each ship, right from the keel to the flat top of the flight deck where aircraft will one day take off and land.

But the managing committee of the Carrier Alliance, consisting of collaborating firms lined up to build the 65,000 tonne ships, including BAE, decided the aircraft carrier sections built at yards in Barrow, Portsmouth, the Clyde and Rosyth, would be built only up to the hangar deck level.

The flight and hangar deck sides will be built separately in modular fashion, craned on and welded up when the sections from around the UK reach Rosyth dockyard, where the two mighty ships will be completed.

This meant both the door and the CAS could be a bit smaller– and cheaper. In fact it meant the Son of DDH won’t be taller than the Devonshire Dock Hall as was originally planned, but will now be about around 13 ft shorter. However, it will have a bigger front door than its “father”.

Barrow bid for work on the aircraft carriers after the town reacted against BAE’s initial plan to designate it a submarines only yard and when it became clear the carriers were so big, a massive effort involving several UK yards would be needed.

Duncan Finch, 50, a former BAE aeronautical engineer who moved to Barrow from BAE’s aerospace plant at Preston for a fresh challenge, is the man behind the rise of the new construction hall.

His work began 18 months ago as a massive strategic review of all the yard’s existing production facilities on the 170 acre site.

He says: “The CAS was developed as a one-off solution to the requirements. We needed extra production capacity for large scale construction for ships and submarines.

“Partly to replace capacity lost since Vanguard, and secondly as a requirement to reduce risk to the Astute submarine by separating aircraft carrier production from submarine building.

“We needed space but needed it away from the Devonshire Dock Hall.”

About one third of the existing 19th century Boiler Shop will be demolished to make adequate room for the CAS to blossom.

Around the whole yard 25,000 sq metres of old facilities will be shut and demolished in the next few years.

BAE spokesman Chris Nelson said: “We are not actually increasing overall shipbuilding capacity as such. We are replacing some stuff because it is outdated and not fit for purpose.”

As well as being cut down to size, the CAS has also been stripped of a large feeder building that was to be built at right angles to it.

Mr Finch says: “We originally planned to have a Unit Production Shop adjacent to the CAS, however it is no longer required.

“We were going to have an automated panel line in there. Ships are built of stiffened panels of steel.

“Initially you put them together to produce units, but these will now be produced on Tyneside and delivered to this shipyard.”

Mr Finch said of the large but utilitarian CAS: “There is a special feature, the door size is huge.

“The company that produces these for shipyards around Europe says they are the biggest they have done.”

The doors fold upwards when they are opened.

Mr Finch, who lives in Ulverston with his partner and enjoys cycling and walking, adds: “We will face challenges during construction phase because of the logistics of bringing lorries onto a production site and alongside the BAE Land Systems business.

“We will manage that on an hour by hour basis.

“The construction impact on the local community will be carefully managed.”

BAE is investing in the £40m building, but the Ministry of Defence is sharing the cost, based on its planned use for both the aircraft carriers, and for some of the work on the vital successor fleet to the existing Trident submarines needed for the 2020s.

Mr Finch has now handed over project management to Steve Robson but will still play a major role.

Having helped design body parts made of hi-tech materials for the RAF’s new BAE built Typhoon jet, Duncan is proud to have headed the conception phase of such a prestige project.

He says: “This shipyard is very healthy.

“There is a very strong order book and a willingness to improve the site in terms of facilities, and also business performance.

“There is a lot of ambition on this site and it is forward looking.”

First published at 11:59, Friday, 04 July 2008
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk