The Ministry of Defence is to build a £500m military college at Watchfield, Wiltshire for the Royal Navy, Army and RAF. A consortium, including Serco and Laing, has been chosen as preferred bidder under the Private Finance Initiative.
The building is on a greenfield site and will be complete by 1999. It will be used by 650 students at any one time. It will comprise lecture halls, work areas and living accommodation. An artists’ impression shows a series of three-storey buildings radiating out from a large circular auditorium, set in rolling fields and bordered on one side by a stream dammed into a small lake.
A temporary £11m site at Bracknell, consisting of huts and Portakabins, will operate for two years before completion of the building. It will then be closed and sold.
- The Daily Telegraph 05/02/97 page 8, page 20
- Financial Times 05/02/97 page 1
- The Times 05/02/97 page 2
- The Guardian 05/02/97 page 7
