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By November 2003, the Met Office will be working from our
new Headquarters building and Operations Centre in Exeter.
A Public Private Partnership commenced in June 2001, with
the Stratus consortium
of Costain, Skanska and Group 4 Falck Global Solutions (GSL)
chosen as the 'preferred bidder' to construct the new building
in Exeter. Agreement to proceed, worth some £150 million
over 17 years, was reached between the Met Office and Stratus,
and work on the new site commenced in October 2001. We have
made excellent progress so far, and we are confident that
the building will be finished on schedule.
The modern IT infrastructure at the Exeter base will allow
us to further improve the way we handle the huge amounts of
weather data and customer information we use every day. By
building in significant back-up to our major IT systems from
day one - two power grids, two IT halls, two supercomputers
- we can ensure better services for customers, 24 hours a
day, every day.
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Our new location will be easy to find...
How to find
us
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By road: M5 J29 - excellent motorway links
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By rail: Exeter St Davids - just 2½
hours to London
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By air: Exeter Airport - less than five
minutes away
We have developed a
Staff Travel Plan (STEP) to encourage staff to use
sustainable methods of travel.
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The move to new premises will provide us with
a modern, environmentally friendly building,
enabling us to bring all our existing operations
in Bracknell under one roof in Exeter. This will
help us to improve the effectiveness of our operations
and encourage the development of innovative products
and services. The purpose-built building has been
designed to support advanced technology and IT
infrastructure, which will result in increased
resilience and data reliability for our customers.
Disruptions to business during relocation will
be kept to a minimum. If customers have any concerns
they should contact their account manager or the
Customer
Centre.
The Met Office will be employing over 1,000 staff,
many of whom will be relocating from the Bracknell
area, ensuring continuity of skills and experience.
We have also recruited a number of staff from
the Exeter area. In addition, there will be a
number of new jobs with GSL created for staff
employed by local companies that are supplying
services to or within the Met Office.
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| News |
| For the latest news on our site progress, read
the quarterly newsletters
and view the site
photos. |
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