ARMY bases at Bandiana are set for a $34 million building program linked to Australia’s overseas operations in Iraq and growing involvement in the Pacific region.
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Government approval has been given for a $27 million warehouse for the Joint Logistics Unit at Wadsworth Barracks expected to cover about 15,000sq m.
That’s about three times the size of Albury’s QEII Square and almost as big as Centro Albury, formerly Westend Plaza.
As well, a $7 million building at Gaza Ridge, South Bandiana, will replace the Army Logistic Training Centre’s supply training wing, a 1940s timber-framed building long used by 31 Supply Battalion.
The two projects are scheduled for 2008-2010, and the former is part of a warehouse relocation project that could cost $65 million to $70 million over the next 10 years.
Most of the work was scheduled to be done in the 1990s but was shelved after the Defence Department spent about $50 million on buildings at Bandiana for both logistics and training.
Activity in the warehouse and maintenance sections has increased greatly in the past year or two as a result of the army’s overseas operations.
The Joint Logistics Unit business manager, Peter Westerling, said yesterday the Defence Department intended to complete the plan to relocate the 19 warehouses at North Bandiana to East Bandiana’s Wadsworth Barracks.
“Some of warehouses were |built in World War II and need |to be replaced,’’ Mr Westerling said.
He said the new warehouse would be built near the 18,000sq m freight and distribution centre at Wadsworth.
That $7 million building is the Border’s largest military building and could house the MCG.
A former parade ground at Wadsworth could be used for the new warehouse.
Defence officials this week began the Bandiana planning process by advertising for a design services consultant.
Security upgrades and refurbishments will be part of the|$34 million project.
The twin projects at Bandiana will run parallel to the Federal Government’s $300 million redevelopment of the Mulwala explosives factory, which supplies propellents for munitions used by the Australian Defence Force.
Prime Minister John Howard is committed to 3 per cent real growth per year in defence spending that will see the budget rise to $26 billion by 2015-2016.
Mr Howard says this will ensure a more combat-focused, better equipped and more operationally ready defence force.
