The Ministry of Defence has signed a contract worth £552,238.88 with Acoustic Technologies for a rapidly deployable air raid warning system at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, according to a contract details notice published on Monday.
The contract was signed on 3 September, with the notice giving contract dates running from 5 October 2026 to 4 October 2027.
As we reported in August, the award notice published on 13 August gave that figure for the requirement and described it as running for five years from 26 October, with the earliest signature date set at 25 August. The description in the new notice continues to state that “the contract will be for 5 Years”, while the contract dates section gives a single year.
The notice states: “There is a need to supplement the Air Raid Warning Sirens that are currently in place at RAF Akrotiri. The requirement is for Air Raid Warning Sirens that can cover the distance of RAF Akrotiri and Akrotiri Village for community warning.”
The system is required to deliver “distinct alert tones (e.g., air raid/imminent threat and all-clear)” together with “live and recorded voice announcement functionality”, and the notice specifies that it “must be portable and operate independent of any fixed infrastructure installations”. On what the contract covers, it states: “The procurement will include supply, commissioning, documentation, training, warranty, and through-life support activities required to deliver and sustain the capability.”
Acoustic Technologies, which trades as ATI Systems, is based in Boston in the United States and is recorded in the notice as a small or medium-sized enterprise. The contract was run under an open procedure, with two tenders received from small and medium-sized firms according to the earlier award notice, and was contracted through British Forces Cyprus headquarters at Episkopi.
Under the Procurement Act 2023, a contract details notice must be published within 30 days of signature for contracts above the relevant threshold.
RAF Akrotiri sits within the Western Sovereign Base Area on the south coast of Cyprus and is the Royal Air Force’s permanent operating base in the eastern Mediterranean. It served as the launch point for Typhoon strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria under Operation Shader, and for RAF sorties against Houthi targets in Yemen during 2024.
The base sits roughly 100 miles from the Syrian coast and within reach of Lebanon, Israel and the wider Levant, closer to regional conflicts than any other permanent British base. The Sovereign Base Areas were retained under the 1960 treaty that granted Cyprus independence, and Akrotiri village lies inside the boundary, which means the base authorities have a civilian population to warn as well as service personnel and their families.
Does such a warning system exist for Episkopi, on the other side of the Salt Lake ( SLS ) or Dhekelia and Ayios Nikolios in the ESBA?
Surely as valid a target as RAF Akrotiri, and in Ay Niks case even more so.
If we plan to stay long term, surely hardened aircraft shelters must be considered. £1bn+ of planes there basically under tents ??????
So True and proper GBAD as well. Not the current lash up in place requiring a valuable and scarce T45 to be in situ.
Same needs to be said iI fear for the key UK air bases like Lossiemouth, BZN and Coningsby to name but 3.
Bet your pants Burnham will do not a lot and the gormless Defence Sec will just amble around saying nothing. Beyond parody I fear….
Why rhe fixation with using the T45s? Like you say all airfields/bases/ports should have their own shorad at least? Why is that so hard to do? SkySabre, SAMP/T, LMM and Raven all already exist, and can get NASAM’s or even some Patriot. Shared pool of inventories has got to be a plus. Tick.
Can’t believe the mind block/avoidance/lack of urgency on this and considering here, the proximity to the Middle East as they say “its a no brainer”. They seem to be spending money on everything else but. And why hasn’t a such a siren system been in place in rhe first place considering all the Operations done out of this base?
What sort of shelters do they have?
Warnings are all very well, but given that the base is well within range of Iran’s heavy ballistic missiles (which can carry 500 – 1800kg warheads)
personnel need somewhere safe to go.
The Jets deployed there are in shelters to keep the sun off, not hardened in any way, no idea about personnel.
There was a contract put our recently to at least build concrete revetments at the dispersals used by the Typhoons.
Considering the HAS complexes were built through the late 70s into the 80s at UK RAF Stations I have often wondered why Akrotiri did not get them. I’d read they were NATO funded, maybe Cyprus was exempt.
At least we will be able to hear them coming now.
“UK to provide military support to Saudi Arabia in its fight with Houthi rebel” (Financial Times) … will they be installed on time?
Front line bases need;
• Hardened shelters.
• Rapid fire CTAS.
• Permanent Sky Sabre.
• RFDEW in development.
Unfortunately it all comes down to money and we don’t have enough to cover the above.
Maybe its more the prioritisation of how any given money is spent. If when stuff cones flying back over the fence and some real damage is done then things might chage. The lack of adequate GBAD is quite foolish and money can be found for something affordable. If they want cheap even Paladin 30mm Vshorad might be useful and LMM and Raven. Jeeze, they’re good enough for use on Ukraine and the UK has next to nothing? Careless. It won’t just be drones that’ll need to be stopped.
Hmmmmm sirens or missile air defence systems 🤔 …………. It’s a no brainier gotta be sirens
That’s what the budget allocated by the DIP allowed, state of the art sirens…
If the Navy is getting rid of its 30mm systems can they be reworked/updated into Paladin type systems for airfield/mobile defence?
I am sure they can be, just need some out of the box thinking instead of always looking for the expensive options that never fit any budget, with proper optics and software almost any existing firing unit can be made into anti drone effector, maybe even taking down cruise missiles
Perhaps something more substantial than a tent to protect our aircraft might be an idea?
There is no available budget for defence. Why?
After his resignation, Al Carns said…that the inadequate increase in defence spending proposed in the upcoming Defence Investment Plan (DIP) could be bolstered by reforming welfare spending.
An unnamed His Majesty’s (HM) Treasury official reacted: ‘let’s be clear what John is asking for: cuts to schools and hospitals’.
Or not really…
‘The Labour party in government has been constitutionally incapable of establishing a clear order of priorities…presenting what social democrats are comfortable spending money on – welfare, Net Zero, infrastructure – not as complements to defence, but as substitutes for what keeps the UK militarily safe in the last instance.
HM Government knows there are other choices out there. Taking them, however, requires political leaders to remove themselves from complacent Treasury thinking which has only delivered economic stagnation since 2008. The next war will not be won by the country with the best technology. It will be won by the country with the most agile bureaucracy.
The key question now is whether a new Labour leadership is capable of staging a conversation with the party that, clear-sighted about what is at stake, can provide a stronger and better answer to the first political question of security.’
Council on Geostrategy 19 June 2026
The clues so far are not auspicious.