DIO completes £3.5m RAF Marham runway intersection resurfacing three weeks early

The Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) has completed a £3.5m resurfacing of the runway intersection at RAF Marham in five weeks, three weeks ahead of its eight-week programme, with a taxiway used to keep Lightning Force flying while the runways were shut.

The DIO said on 7 October that the work covered 28,000 square metres of the intersection. Before the new surface could go down, just over 4,000 square metres of the underlying pavement needed repair, and the team also resurfaced a further 675 square metres on Runway 05.

VIVO carried out the job with sub-contractor Allied and four specialist sub-contractors, according to the DIO.

Tim Fenton, DIO's Project Delivery Manager, said: "Completing these essential repairs is an important investment in the resilience of RAF Marham's airfield infrastructure."

Keeping the jets flying

Because the repairs sat at the point where the runways cross, every runway was out of use while the contractors were on the pavement. The DIO said a taxiway was used instead to keep Lightning Force operations going, with contractor movements coordinated with Air Traffic Control and the Airfield Manager to limit disruption to the rest of the station.

The DIO said the team also delivered a £3.8m saving by adopting an alternative approach that removed the need for an on-site concrete batching plant. The release does not set out the baseline against which that figure is measured.

Flt Lt Steve Southward, SO3 Sustain & Regional Delivery Desk Officer, RAF Central Region (South), said: "Through proactive collaboration between RAF Marham, DIO, VIVO and Air Infrastructure, we were able to extend the scope of the project to deal with additional required repairs."

He said doing the extra work while contractors were already mobilised reduced future maintenance liabilities and avoided the cost and disruption of a separate project.

The F-35 programme

The earlier runway works at Marham formed part of a £250m DIO investment programme to prepare the station for the F-35. The 2026 release says the intersection was last resurfaced in 2018; the DIO's own release of October 2017 recorded the intersection resurfacing as complete, with flying resuming on Friday 29 September 2017, and its June 2018 release concerned the 1,855-metre secondary runway.

That 2017 intersection job, the third of nine phases of the F-35 infrastructure project, removed more than 13,000 tonnes of existing asphalt and laid more than 18,000 tonnes over nearly 38,000 square metres. It required a three-week halt to flying, with contractors working multiple shifts, seven days a week, the DIO said at the time.

The works were delivered by a Galliford Try and Lagan Construction joint venture. Resurfacing the secondary runway in 2018 required the construction of two batching plants for asphalt and concrete, in contrast to this year's project.

The wider programme, which the Ministry of Defence said involved resurfacing about 90% of the airfield operating surfaces, also included three vertical landing pads and a squadron headquarters for 617 Squadron. The MOD awarded the £135m contract for the F-35 infrastructure in June 2017, the last of seven projects worth £250m, and it included resurfacing two existing runways and taxiways while the station stayed operational.

VIVO's role

VIVO, a joint venture between Serco and Engie, holds the DIO's Future Defence Infrastructure Services (FDIS) contracts for the Central and South West regions, part of a package of awards worth £1.6bn in total announced in June 2021.

The DIO described FDIS as a new way of working for the organisation. The initial contracts run for seven years and could be extended by up to a further three years.