Construction of facilities at Australian CUTA nears completion

Construction of urban operations training facility and range control facilities at the Australian Army’s Cultana Training Area (CUTA) is set to be completed.

Due to be finished by April, the facilities are being built as part of a broader A$84.5m ($60m) redevelopment project currently underway at the CUTA. Work on the new facilities started in mid-2017.

The project will allow the Australian Defence Force (ADF) to conduct lifelike training activities centred on current and expected future operational environments, and ready the soldiers for operational service.

Australian Assistant Defence Minister David Fawcett said: “It is also great to see the majority of this project’s sub-contract packages were awarded to local industry.”

Approximately A$42.1m ($29.89m) has been invested in the South Australian economy as part of this project and A$33m ($23.43m) of the project costs had been sourced from 13 local contractors.

Federal Member for Grey Rowan Ramsey said: “That is very good and we will continue to push for local priority in future purchases.

“By investing locally, we all benefit from supporting local businesses who employ local workers and encourage growth in the local economy.”

CUTA is the largest training area of the Department of Defence in South Australia located nearly 370km north-west of Adelaide in the Upper Spencer Gulf between Port Augusta and Whyalla.

It is used for training operations such as combined arms manoeuvring training, live firing of ammunition, including small arms, field and medium artillery weapons, and air-delivered weapons.

Other activities include air-mobile and airborne operations such as air to ground live firing, unmanned aerial system training activities, and electronic warfare training.

The CUTA redevelopment project also involves the construction of trunk infrastructure, site infrastructure, road network, multi-bay magazine, waste shelter, ammunition transfer points, vehicle wash bay and combined arms range.