RAF Leeming handover is first completion under MOD's seven-contractor Strategic Alliance

The Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) has handed new offices and a 32-bed accommodation block at RAF Leeming in Northallerton to the RAF, the first project completed under the Ministry of Defence's 2023 Strategic Alliance contract.

DIO said construction started in September 2025 on the project, which it valued at about £15m. Galliford Try was awarded the contract to develop the design and deliver the infrastructure, with Arcadis supporting on design assurance, and DIO managed construction on behalf of the MOD.

The buildings were handed to Air Officer Commanding 2 Group Air Vice-Marshal Anthony Lyle and Commander Air Bases, Air Commodore Simon Blackwell, for use by the Air C2 (Command and Control) Force, which DIO said is responsible for 24/7 air surveillance of the UK and assigned NATO airspace and directs military air systems.

Nicola Bond, DIO project manager, said: "Air C2 Force can now complete their move to RAF Leeming, where we have delivered new sustainable infrastructure to support their vital work."

She said the force had been based at RAF Leeming, RAF Boulmer and RRH Staxton Wold since relocating from RAF Scampton in 2022, and that the project had brought challenges, with collaboration between the RAF, DIO and external partners key to completion and handover.

The procurement model

The Leeming scheme was both the first to break ground and the first to complete under a contract signed in 2023 to deliver projects within the MOD's Defence Estate Optimisation (DEO) Portfolio, DIO said. It described DEO as the single biggest estates change programme within Defence, investing in a smaller, more efficient estate.

Under that contract, DIO said, seven contractors agreed to deliver a large number of regional packages of work in one process. Galliford Try, in its own announcements, said the Strategic Alliance replaces the traditional project-by-project tendering process.

Galliford Try announced on 11 May 2023 that its Building business had signed a Strategic Alliance Contract with DIO, having won the Air & UK Strategic Command regional package. Its second package covers reconfiguring accommodation and ancillary facilities at Munster Barracks in Catterick Garrison. The contractor said the two packages together are worth up to an estimated £387m, within what it described as a £5.1bn DEO investment portfolio covering facilities for more than 100,000 service personnel and civilian staff across the UK.

An official signing ceremony between the MoD and the Strategic Alliance Partners took place in May 2023. Speaking at the ceremony, Baroness Annabel Goldie DL, Minister of Defence, said there was "a once in a generation opportunity to deliver significant change".

In December 2023 the MOD signed four contracts with Galliford Try at RAF Waddington for work spanning RAF Leeming, RAF Saxton Wold, both RAF Boulmer sites and RAF Waddington. The MOD said those contracts had enabled the disposal of RAF Scampton. Charles Hoskins, Director of Major Projects and Programmes for DIO, said at the time that this was DIO's first DEO project for Air Command under the new contracting mechanism.

Project value

The two organisations have published different figures for the Leeming scheme. When Galliford Try broke ground in September 2025 it put the scheme at £12.74m; DIO's handover release of 10 November 2026 gives a figure of about £15m. Neither organisation has set out the reason for the difference.

Galliford Try started on site at the same time on a £26.5m scheme at RAF Boulmer in Northumberland, also for the Air C2 Force. It said the two schemes were the first to begin construction under the Strategic Alliance, and Christian Standage, its Defence Director, said at the time the company was the first alliance partner to go live on DEO projects.

The buildings

DIO said both the office and accommodation buildings used a pre-cast concrete construction system. They are heated by air source heat pumps, powered in part by solar panels, and use harvested rainwater.

Separately from the contract, Galliford Try funded and refurbished the station's Cinebowl, a cinema and ten-pin bowling facility for Service families, as a social value initiative, DIO said.

The £26.5m RAF Boulmer scheme broke ground alongside Leeming in September 2025, according to Galliford Try.