News story: ‘Top of the range’ military training facility opened at Garelochhead

The £3 million project took around 2 years to complete and is designed to provide the optimum ‘safe place’ training environment for armed forces personnel in order to equip them with the skills required for operational duties at home and overseas.

The project has seen the existing Garelochhead ranges transformed in to 2 new developments: a grouping and zeroing (G&Z) range and an electronic target tange (ETR) and a single range building complex with classrooms, a targetry store and workshops, which serve the 2 ranges.

Brigadier Neil Dalton OBE, head of training for the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) said:

The opening of these ranges represents a significant investment by defence, delivered by DIO, to provide the modern facilities required to develop and maintain individual shooting skills.

These ranges will serve a host of nearby units, as well as those using the neighbouring training area, and are a great further boost to the quality of infrastructure in the Clyde area.

The programme delivery was managed by Scotland’s DIO service delivery training team and industry partner Landmarc Support Services with local contractor, Mackenzie Construction Ltd responsible for the build phase of the project.

Lt Col Mike Onslow, Commander of DIO service delivery training team in Scotland and Northern Ireland said:

DIO is committed to improving the facilities and services that it provides to the armed forces and this project is a great example of how we are doing this. The benefits offered by these new facilities are legion. They are also the result of five years of hard work, detailed collaboration and numerous opportunities to practice our problem solving abilities. 

The people involved in delivering these ranges and the supporting infrastructure have been superb and suffered the capricious nature of the west coast weather; they have my admiration and thanks.  We have a complex that is efficient; environmentally future proofed and will provide the required training to all elements of defence based in the close proximity and elsewhere for years to come.

Kevin Kneeshaw, regional operations manager for Landmarc Support Services in Scotland added:

By working collaboratively with DIO and our contractor, Mackenzie, we have been able to overcome a number of unique challenges to deliver first class training facilities that are not only sustainable, but will deliver cost savings for our armed forces.