Mark has visited the Babcock/Defence Support Group facility at Donnington to meet senior staff, tour the facility, and see the work of its highly skilled engineers.

The Government's Defence Support Group was sold to Babcock in 2015. As part of the transaction, the Government awarded Babcock a 10-year contract (with an option to extend to 15 years) for the storage, maintenance, repair and overhaul of military vehicles and equipment. This includes a fleet of over 30,000 vehicles, ranging from quad bikes to main battle tanks, and equipment ranging from generators and weapons.

The Defence Support Group supply chain operation sources over 200,000 spare parts and millions of pounds worth of repairs annually.

At the Donnington site, Babcock also conducts complex engineering projects to rebuild armoured vehicles, carry out vehicle assembly integration, and test new vehicles entering service. It runs a vehicle inspection and storage service to hold highly complex military equipment in controlled humidity storage so that they can be made available quickly when required.

Following the visit, Mark said:

"Babcock/DSG has some of the very best defence engineers in the UK. I will continue to make the case to Ministers that Shropshire remains the best place to service, restore, engineer and re-engineer a multiplicity of platforms currently used by the British Army. I am confident, under a Conservative government, that new defence engineering work will come to Donnington, the borough and Shropshire."