A Tyneside shipyard has missed out on a lucrative £1.6bn contract to build support vessels for the Royal Navy.
The Government's announcement that a consortium including Spanish firm Navantia will take the work, with much of the production taking place in Belfast, means A&P Tyne will lose out. An official press release suggests 1,200 direct jobs would be created by the order, with the promise of £77m investment for Harland & Wolff's Northern Ireland yard.
A&P said it was disappointed with the decision but remained hopeful of winning future tenders delivered by the National Shipbuilding Strategy. In March, the former Secretary of State for International Trade Anne-Marie Trevelyan visited A&P's Hebburn yard to launch the strategy which the Government said it hoped would spur a "shipbuilding rennaissance".
