4 Dec 07

The Aspire Defence Capital Works (ADCW) and Aspire Defence Services Ltd (ADSL) teams achieved the first major milestone in Aldershot with the Acceptance into Service of Wellington House, St Omer Barracks, which provides a new training and education centre for the Army as well as the headquarters for Aldershot Garrison.

General Officer Commanding 4th Division, Major General Peter Everson, officially opened the facility today (4 December).

The building delivered two weeks ahead of schedule back in October provides a modern, high quality, fully serviced, purpose built education centre for soldiers and officers offering courses including adult literacy and career leadership and management. Wellington House also provides office accommodation for a number of other units that were previously spread across Aldershot garrison as well as the ADSL Aldershot management team, the Army’s garrison management team (GMT) and the local MoD Project Allenby/Connaught team. The accommodation brings them together under one
roof for the first time, which will help facilitate effective management and communication to deliver the best service possible.

Just 18 months previously, the site on which Wellington House stands was a parade square. Now the garrison is changing day-by-day with the building of new living and working accommodation under Project Manager, Rhod McGregor’s, team.

Rhod said, “In total in Aldershot, ADCW will deliver 2,400 soldiers with single en suite bedrooms as well as a whole range of other facilities. The first of these to be delivered in Aldershot, along with a new dining facility which will be able to cater for up to 800 soldiers in each sitting, will be handed over to the Army early next year.”

Services which underpin the smooth running of the garrison are already being provided across Aldershot Garrison. These include estate management, 24 hour helpdesk, armoury, catering, cleaning and utilities.

Tina Goodman, Facilities Manager, ADSL drew up a detailed ‘decant’ plan and oversaw the transition of the 15 units into Wellington House, which were moved into the building within a five day period. Tina, working closely with the estates team, organised the move from liaising with the removals company to commissioning cleaning through Sodexho and ensuring a state of the art Salto security system, the first to be put into place in any building in Aldershot, was installed.

Taking just 60 weeks to build, furnish and handover into service, Wellington House will provide a significant landmark on the garrison, as when the Defence Food Services School – affectionately referred to as Custard Towers locally – is demolished in January 2009 it will become the tallest building on the new look garrison with just three floors. Colonel Nigel Josling, Colonel Aldershot Garrison, said “The milestone in Aldershot is especially significant as Wellington House is a very visible part of the construction and service programme. Wellington House stands on the roadside and can be seen by local residents as well as military personnel – so people can see the progress being made before their eyes.

More important for our soldiers, though, will be the completion of the first new accommodation blocks, early in 2008, adjacent to Wellington House. There is definitely a sense of ‘happening’ and the Army is looking forward to a new living and working environment.”