Teesside welcomes Royal Navy ships as part of £150m restoration deal

Two Royal Navy ships are on Teesside as part of a one hundred and fifty million pound renovation project.

UK Docks, based in South Shields, won a ten-year deal to refurbish the Navy's three survey ships.

HMS Protector has been in the company's Tees dock since March while HMS Enterprise arrived for a refit last week. 

The company will also maintain HMS Echo over the next 10 years. 

The three vessels are all 90 metres long - roughly the length of a football pitch - and because of their important roles need to have an operational availability of 334 days per ship per year.

Protector provides a UK presence in the British Antarctic Territory and meets the UK's treaty obligations for inspections, hydrographical charting and support of scientific research. It can also be called upon to operate in the tropics.

Enterprise and her sister ship Echo deliver defence, global environmental data-gathering requirements and associated war roles. It will be UK Docks' responsibility to ensure their availability by, if necessary, overseeing maintenance and repairs across the globe.

Since the announcement of UK Docks winning the contract, the company has increased the size of its facilities on Teesside. It has also recruited a specialist team of marine experts to meet the specialist needs of the Royal Navy.

Enterprise is expected to remain on Teesside for several weeks before putting out to sea again towards the end of April.