DIO awards £20m to refurbish RAF Valley runway

The Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) has awarded a contract worth £20 million to refurbish one of two runways at RAF Valley to a joint venture of North Stone and White Mountain.

The funding will be used to refurbish the runway and link taxiways, and provide a new section airside perimeter road, new visual aids, aeronautical lighting and signage.

The RAF Valley runway acts as fast jet training base, with pilots mostly using Hawk aircraft. However, the strength of the existing taxiways can only support Hawk aircraft and not other aircraft such as Hercules, Tornados and Typhoons.

The new work should extend the life of the runway for a further 25 years. The news follows the Defence Equipment and Support’s announcement that £1.1 million will be invested in fast jet training on sites across the UK.

Alan Baker, DIO’s project manager, said: “We’re pleased to have awarded the contract for the work at RAF Valley and are looking forward to getting underway. The DIO invests in infrastructure to support the armed forces to live, work, train and deploy and the work at RAF Valley will be an important part of that, especially in the light of the investment in fast jet training announced by Defence Equipment and Support.”

The refurbishment is expected to take around 12 months, with construction commencing in March 2016 and completing in February 2017.