Site Unseen: Farnborough to Warton

Since the last issue, the Site Unseen tour has visited six more BAE Systems' sites. Site Unseen is a tour of 40 BAE Systems sites by Local Campaigns Co-ordinator Chris Cole. The aim of the tour is to expose where BAE Systems is around the country, raise awareness about what they do, and try to raise some coffers for CAAT.

April 23rd - Farnborough

Farnborough Aerospace Centre houses BAE's network of office buildings and is also home to a growing business airport. The building we visited sits poignantly alongside the site of Farnborough's bi-annual 'airshow'. Although the area is very much dominated by the Ministry of Defence, with Aldershot just a few minutes drive away, we were all surprised by the amount of supportive 'beeps' and waves our little vigil received.

Although Farnborough is the HQ of BAE Systems, nothing is actually manufactured there. Rather, the company as a whole is managed from the site and, perhaps more importantly, this is where the marketing campaigns are run from.

On BAE's graduate recruitment website a young graduate talks about her work with the Equatorial Marketing team in Farnborough: “My day to day tasks vary from assisting directors with the writing of country plans and strategy to helping out with the organisation of exhibitions in the Equatorial region. I have also been given the opportunity to attend a naval exhibition in Chile.”

Exciting as this work may be for young graduates, the consequences of push of more and more weapons around the globe are there for all to see.

Camberley

The site is part of Alenia Marconi Systems (AMS) which is 50% owned by BAE systems and 50% owned by Finmeccanica, an Italian military company. AMS is a major military electronics company, designs, manufactures and supplies missiles, radar and command and control systems to military forces around the world.

In the evening a public meeting was held at the Farnham Friends meeting House.

April 29th - London

First, a quiet vigil was held outside the company's main London office in Carlton Gardens. Executives and directors returning from persistent questioning at their AGM greeted us wearily, but with good humour. Later, another short protest was held outside the London offices of BAE's guided weapon subsidiary, MBDA, on The Strand. This office, once BAE's main London offices, was once the site of many anti-arms trade protests during the '80s and '90s - talk about deja vu!

May 12th - Lancashire

Well supported protest vigils were held at BAE Systems biggest two sites in Lancashire: BAE Warton and BAE Samlesbury. The Warton protest was held to coincide with the regular monthly peace protest at the factory that has been continuing at the site now for nearly five years.

BAE Warton and BAE Samlesbury are involved in research, development, design and production of military aircraft. Despite some civil production, the company has been more and more focussed on the military production at Warton recently.

Military aircraft produced at the sites include the infamous Hawk, over 800 of which have been produced and sold around the world - including to the notorius regimes of Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe.

Other major aircraft in production or development at the sites include the Eurofighter, recently renamed the Typhoon, and the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), produced in partnership with US-giant Lockheed Martin.

Warton is also home to a training academy for military aircraft engineers. The company boasts that it has provided dozens of countries with military aircraft engineers including those from Indonesia, India and Saudi Arabia.