Defence firm Babcock shuts Devon site with 200 jobs at risk
Engineering firm Babcock announced today it is closing a dockyard in Devon putting nearly 200 jobs at risk.
Babcock said in a statement “it has taken the difficult decision to exit operations at its Appledore facility in Devon, ending its site lease in March 2019”.
Babcock said it will offer “relocation opportunities” to all 199 staff at the site and said 140 of them were already on short-term deployment to its Devonport site.
The closure comes despite an offer from the Ministry of Defence (MOD) to bring forward a £60m package of work for Appledore.
The defence secretary Gavin Williamson said it had discussed bringing forward the £60m contract but said that Babcock had said that this would not secure the long-term future of the yard.
Williamson wrote that "I have received no assurances from Babcock that the company would keep the yard open if help were offered by the MOD."
Babcock said it “very much regrets having to take this course of action” and said it would now enter a consultation period with its employees and their trade union representatives.
In 2017-18 Appledore generated around £24m of Babcock’s total revenue of £5.4bn.