A British industrial giant has visited another at BAE Systems – Submarines, Barrow, to examine a key new facility built by his family’s firm.
Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd built the Central Coatings Facility on the Cumbrian site to a bespoke design for shot-blasting and painting submarines built for the Royal Navy.
Sir Andrew McAlpine – a partner in the construction firm – enjoyed a tour of the site and said: “It is great to have been invited back here. It is one of the joys of being a builder.”
He added: “It is fascinating to learn new things about different industries especially one as complex as building submarines.”
Joining Sir Andrew on the visit was Mark Gibson, Sir Robert McAlpine Managing Director for the Scotland/Northern region. He said: “We are very proud to be part of this building. We work with a lot of different industries, but nothing as complicated as this.”
BAE Systems Submarines Facilities Programme Director Allan Day said: “The partnership between McAlpine and BAE Systems has successfully delivered a facility which gives the shipyard a state of the art capability for blasting and painting in a safe environment. This facility uses technology which will precisely control the environment to enable BAE Systems to deliver a quality product to the Ministry of Defence.”
