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Defence

WFEL ships £8.5m Turkish order

WFEL - the Stockport-based defence engineering group - has completed an £8.5 million contract for the Turkish military.

The order for a tranche of its next generation portable bridging system, the Dry Support Bridge (DSB) was originally secured in the summer of 2008.

Under the agreement WFEL also procured the OshKosh vehicles on which Turkey will transport and launch its DSBs.

As part of the agreement, WFEL’s specialists will deliver training on location in Turkey.

The DSB is part of WFEL’s portfolio of tactical bridging assets which are used by armed forces in conflict zones and civilian disaster emergency relief operations.

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The business, which is backed by private equity firm Dunedin, has been designing and manufacturing tactical military bridges at its Stockport headquarters since the 1970s.

There are currently more than 600 WFEL bridges in use by almost 40 different armed forces worldwide.

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Ian Wilson, chief executive of WFEL, said: “This agreement typifies the end-to-end service offering we have developed, from manufacturing the bridges to procuring the launch vehicles and then delivering training to new users on the ground.

“We have now opened the door to what we hope will be the first of many orders from Turkey as we continue to roll out our export strategy based on establishing WFEL products in new territories.”

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