Last updated 17:03, Thursday, 28 August 2008

WORK has come to a halt on BAE’s £40m “Son of DDH” new shipbuilding hall, the Evening Mail can reveal.

DESERTED: The ‘Son of DDH’ site

Development of the site has stopped because a new review is taking place into where all the modular sections for two giant new aircraft carriers should be built.

The review was ordered by leaders of the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, based in Scotland, Portsmouth and Bristol, who have been told by the Ministry of Defence to look for cuts in the cost of the 65,000-tonne ships.

BAE shipyard chief Murray Easton told the Mail there had been “a temporary cessation of work pending the review of specific facility requirements for the build strategy of the aircraft carriers and a possible adjustment of who builds what where”.

It was only on July 3 that the government signed the contract for the Queen Elizabeth and the Prince of Wales carriers, which are expected to cost around £4bn.

There were ceremonies at shipyards around Britain including Barrow. It was announced then that Barrow was getting a special £300m sub-contract to produce the design engineering and drawings for the whole mid-section, and to build the lower mid-sections up to the aircraft hanger decks.

BAE planned to import around 400 contractors – many expected to be from the north east to work on the carrier sections for around five years, while keeping most of its core workforce for submarine work.

Tyneside sub contractors are lined up to build largish sections of steelwork that would be then sent by ship to Barrow and welded into still larger sections in the Central Assembly Shop (the so-called son of DDH), before being rolled out to the slipway, launched and towed to Rosyth, near Edinburgh.

With the review under way, there are fears that Barrow may lose some of the work, and the mostly temporary jobs that were due to be created to carry out the carrier contract.

The review is expected to report its findings next month. But whatever the outcome Barrow is expected to hang onto its crucial design role for the giant ships. Around 150 of the yard’s design engineers and draughtsmen will do all the detailed design engineering for the mid section of each vessel, thereby keeping the town’s crucial design team together and retaining a hand in surface ships for Barrow.

The yard has invested £10m in a new Foran computer aided design system for the job.

Despite the halt to work, and the review, outcome pending, BAE is still looking for 350 more workers for its submarine programme.