Defence as a catalyst for growth: a postcard from Plymouth!
Nick Smith is a lecturer in planning at the University of Plymouth and is programme leader of MSc Planning.
As planners, we are constantly having to understand and respond to a variety of challenges across a wide range of spatial scales. Tackling the climate crisis, promoting better health, and supporting nature recovery are just three that instantly come to mind. Planners are also well-placed to identify, appraise and develop strategies for delivering resilience against multi-faceted threats. The threat of global insecurity has certainly re-surfaced in recent years and you, like me, have no-doubt found the daily updates on the news about world conflicts to be both depressing and sobering.
In response to the Ministry of Defence’s assertion that we are in a ‘new era of threat’, the UK Government has committed to increase defence spending. Building from the £60.2bn spent during the 2024/25 financial year, spending is set to increase to £62.2bn during 2025/26 and to £73.5bn during 2028/29 (MOD, 2025a; Kirk Wade, 2025). Although the forthcoming Strategic Defence Review (SDR) will un-pack the full scale of need, and explain where and how this spending will be directed, the Government has already outlined a series of principles that will underpin the SDR (MOD, 2025a).
One of these principles, titled ‘engine for growth’, sees defence spending as a mechanism for “driving jobs and prosperity through a new partnership with industry, radical procurement reforms and backing UK businesses” (MOD, 2025a). This rhetoric is certainly apparent in the Defence Industrial Strategy that was published in September 2025 (HM Government, 2025). This document also refers to the important, facilitating role that planning and planners will need to take to maximise the impact of investment for the defence of the realm (HM Government, 2025).
While investment in defence will be a national endeavour, the recent Defence Growth Deal Programme has identified five locations for £250m of investment (MOD, 2025b). Alongside the broader areas of South Yorkshire, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, the list explicitly names Plymouth, with the city expecting to receive up to £50m in support.
As many will be aware, Plymouth is home to the largest naval base in Western Europe - HMNB Devonport – that extends to over 650 acres and has a workforce of 2,500 service people and civilians (Royal Navy, 2026). Babcock operates a facility (Devonport Royal Dockyard) within the broader base and employs a further 7,000 people who support critical defence programmes, including complex submarine maintenance. Within the last year, the naval base has been awarded £4.4bn, with the associated work programmes extending to at least 2070 (PCC, 2025). Seizing this opportunity, Babcock is set to recruit a further 5,000 highly skilled employees over the next ten years and has recently announced plans to acquire and repurpose a former House of Fraser store in the city.
Beyond the naval base, the city is also recognised for its excellence in the broader marine sector and its expertise in the building of remotely operated vessels and in the application of marine Artificial Intelligence. Indeed, in June 2025, Plymouth was designated as the National Centre for Marine Autonomy (NCMA), which seeks to create a flexible, future-focused environment where collaborations can help to “deliver fast-paced, high-impact research and development through access to real-world test ranges, shared facilities and strong co-creation” (NCMA, 2026). In doing so, the NCMA is seeking to drive economic prosperity, skills development and long-term innovation across sectors, including defence, net zero, cyber security and environmental monitoring. The NCMA is charged to nurture expertise across the UK, but it has global ambitions too. A recent £20m grant from the Local Innovations Partnerships Fund seeks to establish a Global Autonomy Cluster based around Plymouth and the wider south west (Devon Chamber, 2026).
For Plymouth, these commitments have helped to give the city a new sense of purpose and wide-ranging activities are underway to ensure that the planned investment, including the defence-driven growth, is able to benefit every part of the city and its residents. An ambitious partnership, known as ‘Team Plymouth’, has been set up to drive these discussions and includes representatives from national and local government, industry, the defence sector, and local educations institutions, including the University of Plymouth (UoP, 2026). The partnership comprises six integrated workstreams, including those that focus on ‘transport’, the ‘city centre, housing and regeneration’, ‘skills- post 16’ and ‘education- pre-16’.
These selected themes are of particular interest to me as an educator in planner and there are wide-ranging opportunities to fulfil. It will certainly be an interesting place in which to plan and study, and some bold, preparatory studies are already underway to identify what is necessary and to scope what can be achieved.
There are ambitious plans to increase the size of the city’s resident population, that will support the additional workforce of the docks, and to ensure that the city centre becomes an even more vibrant and sustainable place in which to live. Some noteworthy gains have already been achieved in this exciting journey. For example, the re-modelling of Armada Way, that is currently under construction, represents a significant and positive transformation of the retail core towards 'city centre living' with the increased mix of activities that this will entail (PCC, 2026). The project is certainly pushing the boundaries for large-scale, city-centre public realm so, when you’re thinking about your next summer excursion, why not plan a visit to Britain’s Ocean City!
