Up to 900 British Army ground vehicles may be housed at a new storage facility based in the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) site in Ashchurch, Tewkesbury in South West England.

This new storage space is the fifth building to be constructed under the Army’s largest infrastructure programme currently in delivery, the Vehicle Storage and Support Programme (VSSP), led by the building company Skanska.

Demolition of 58 legacy buildings began at the end of September 2022, enabling regeneration of the site. All building activity is expected to conclude in 2027 with the final delivery of 13 new buildings.

In the end, Skanska will deliver a centralised site, with a Controlled Humidity Environment (CHE), for 4,100 Army vehicles in total. This will minimise the need for maintenance, ensuring the platforms are ready to deploy when needed.

“We look forward to further progress over coming months as we continue our collaboration with [Defence Infrastructure Organisation] and industry partners, to improve working infrastructure for personnel at MoD Ashchurch,” stated Belinda Lunn, senior responsible owner of VSSP.

According to the UK Armed Forces Equipment list, there were 3,207 ground vehicles, including armoured personnel carriers, protected mobility vehicles, and armoured fighting vehicles. However, due to an ongoing process to improve the quality of field army equipment data, the currently published numbers are from 1 April 2023.

A British Army MAN HX vehicle was the first unit to enter the CHE facility at MoD Ashchurch. Credit: Skanska.

Repurposing the UK defence estate

After the Forestry Commission, the MoD has the second largest government estate. On 1 April 2024, the department owned 231,600 hectares of land and foreshore across Britain (either freehold or leasehold), or around 0.9% of the total British land mass.

The Army is not alone in repurposing legacy space in the defence estate. In August last year, the MoD laid out plans to convert Cawdor Army Barracks in Pembrokeshire, Wales into a Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability site.

In 2016, the government announced that Cawdor, home to the 14 Signal Regiment (Electronic Warfare), would close and this was planned to take place in 2028.

However, the new DARC site will instead be used to contribute to space intelligence sharing among the trilateral AUKUS pact under the alliance’s pillar two initiative.