Cumbria is one of the counties identified by the Government as a potential location for new factories to make munitions and military explosives.
The Government said it would boost the UK’s warfighting readiness and it wanted to move to the next phase of building ‘factories of the future’ for Britain.
Cumbria is one of 13 places announced by Defence Secretary John Healey and now industry will be invited to submit proposals to meet the Government’s requirements for energetics production.
The Ministry of Defence has funded a number of feasibility studies for the new energetics factories to kickstart high volume energetics production at scale for the first time in nearly two decades.
The engineering design work on the first of these factories has been commissioned with a view to start production for armed forces and to enable continued support to Ukraine.
In the Strategic Defence Review published in June, the Ministry of Defence committed £1.5 billion of additional defence investment for energetics and munitions including the ‘always on munitions’ pipeline.
The Government said it was committed to building at least six new munitions and energetics factories this Parliament, creating at least 1,000 new jobs.
Defence support supports over 460,000 jobs in the UK, including over 24,000 Ministry of Defence apprenticeships and last financial year spent £31.7 billion with UK-based business.
Areas for the identified sites are:
- Monmouthshire
- Cumbria
- Dumfriesshire
- Ayrshire
- Shropshire
- Cheshire
- Derbyshire
- Essex
- Worcestershire
- Hampshire
- Pembrokeshire
- Stirlingshire
Penrith & Solway MP Markus Campbell-Savours welcomed the news.
He said: “Cumbria has a long proud manufacturing history. I said my number one priority was to bring jobs and investment to our area. That’s exactly what Labour’s defence investment will deliver.”
