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Facility expansion
The company’ s site expansions have continued, with increased facilities providing further opportunities for growth.“ In 2014, we acquired a second ship repair facility with two dry docks on the River Tees in Middlesborough; one hadn’ t had a ship in it for over 20 years and the other for over 30 years, so both needed extensive investment to replace infrastructure,” Jonathan narrates.“ We then took on another facility in Plymouth in 2017, followed by the acquisition of a six-acre waterfront facility in Gosport at the Royal Clarence Yard in 2019, and a further two dry docks in Middlesborough in 2025 to take our portfolio from two to four dry docks. The site in Middlesborough has expanded from five acres to 16 acres, providing us with increased capacity, bigger workshops, and wider dry docks: one is 17.3 meters by 83 meters and the other is 22.25 meters by 175 meters, which enables us to tender for a new range and bigger category of vessels.”
As a Grade II listed site, the second Gosport facility in Royal Clarence Yard brought unique challenges for the business.“ The site has an interesting heritage; it contains the Navy’ s former rum store and Queen Victoria’ s personal railway station,” Jonathan reveals.“ It was derelict when we moved in, but we established a significant, three-phase multimillion-pound investment plan to restore it into a marine service center. The first stage was to set it operational, the second stage was to occupy the buildings, and the third phase, which we plan to start later in 2025, is to refurbish the old rum store.
“ So far, we’ ve equipped the site with boat lift and launch facilities, refurbished the workshops and office facilities, installed over 220 meters of working pontoons and re-surfaced the hard standing and work
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