UK Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) have confirmed to IHS Jane's that a programme to inspect, repair, and deliver more than 3,000 vehicles and other equipment back to the British Army has been completed ahead of schedule.
The equipment was returned after use in Afghanistan, stored, and then each item was put through an inspect and repair process.
This was a joint DE&S and British Army project called the Herrick Exchange Programme (HEP) and was carried out at the facilities of Babcock in Ashchurch, Lyneham (which has now closed) and Warminster.
Included in the HEP were 673 protected mobility vehicles (PMVs) including Mastiffs, Wolfhounds, Ridgbacks, Huskys, Jackals, Coyotes, and Foxhounds.
These were procured for the British Army using Urgent Operational Requirement (UOR) funding provided by the Treasury but a decision was subsequently taken to bring these into the 'core' British Army equipment fleet, which is funded by the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
According to DE&S, on an average each item of equipment took about 160 hours to inspect, repair, and release back to service.
Project HEP was carried out as part of the Land Equipment Service Provision and Transformation Contract.
Babcock purchased the extensive facilities of the government-owned Defence Support Group and was subsequently awarded this contract in April 2015 worth GBP900 million (USD1.1 billion), which runs for 10 years.
The United Kingdom purchased more than 2,000 PMVs for use in Iraq and Afghanistan but not all of these needed to go through the inspect, repair, and process scheme.
The United Kingdom also purchased 115 Warthog protected all-terrain vehicles from Singapore Technologies Kinetics but a decision was taken not to keep these, with the 106 that remain having already been put up for sale.
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