The announcement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, that A&P Falmouth had won a £15 million contract to complete the fit-out of the four new Royal Fleet Auxiliary tankers was the result of months of behind the scenes hard work by the Falmouth Cluster team headed by Gerald Pitts, Cluster director.

Gerald said: “Winning this contract is the culmination of seven months of hard work by the Cluster Support Team and A&P staff, drawing on the reputation and experience built up over the past seven years. We are looking forward very shortly to starting the planning and design work for this exciting project.”

The first 37,000 ton tanker RFA Tidespring is expected to arrive here in December.

A&P will customise the vessels to UK/MOD standards, provide full assistance as they go through their capability assessment trials and continue to support all four ships in service until 2018.

A&P will recruit project managers, programme engineers and design staff in the coming months.