A site in Pembrokeshire has been confirmed as a prospective location for a major new UK munitions factory - however, campaigners against the proposals, have stated that plans to build a ‘bomb factory’ on a gas pipeline would be detrimental to the locality.

Multiple sites across the UK for new factories to make munitions and military explosives to boost the UK’s warfighting readiness have been identified as the Government moves to the next phase of building the factories of the future.

The Defence Secretary John Healey MP confirmed that the Military of Defence has now funded a number of feasibility studies for the new energetics factories to kickstart high volume energetics production at scale for the first time in nearly two decades.

The engineering design work on the first of these factories has been commissioned with a view to start production for UK Armed Forces and to enable our continued support to Ukraine.

Potential sites include Grangemouth in Scotland, Teesside in Northeast England, and Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire.

The factories will produce the components essential for bolstering the UK’s weapons arsenal including propellants, explosives and pyrotechnics.

Mr Healey said: “We are making defence an engine for growth, unambiguously backing British jobs and British skills as we make the UK better ready to fight and better able to deter future conflicts. This is the path that delivers national and economic security.”

Responding to possible MoD investment into a munition factory in Milford Haven, Shadow Economy Secretary and Senedd Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, Samuel Kurtz said: “I’m pleased to see Pembrokeshire highlighted by the UK Government.

“Having written to the Secretary of State for Defence back in June to set out Pembrokeshire’s strategic importance, and having raised the issue on several occasions in the Senedd Chamber, this could mark encouraging progress for both our local economy and our national security.

“Pembrokeshire has a proud military heritage, and there is no reason it cannot be at the forefront of our military present and future. I will continue to work with Paul Davies MS to champion our County,” added the Welsh Conservatives Senedd Member.

However, anti-Radar campaigners from the county, have stated that plans to build a ‘bomb factory’ on a gas pipeline in Milford shows yet more ‘contempt for Wales’.

PARC Against DARC - the campaign which was set up in 2024 in opposition to the proposed US run military Space radar at Brawdy in Pembrokeshire, has issued a statement opposing any further militarism in Wales as well as what it describes as ‘The UK’s current drive to war at the behest of the US and Trump’.

The statement lays out key arguments against a munitions factory in Milford - stating it is ‘unnecessary and unwanted’ and would be detrimental for the area.

“PARC Against DARC is categorically against increased military spending at the behest of the US and Trump. We are against the rush to war with Russia, but even more so against the bigger risk of inciting a whole new Cold War with China,” said a spokesperson.

“At a time when political solutions to conflict are needed more than ever, the UK Labour government always seems to have the money to find yet another excuse to paint a military target on Wales’s back, and add to the long litany of armament factories, military bases and training grounds that already litter our rural communities.

“It is no coincidence to us that they rarely seem to find a reason to put many of them in the nicer parts of the South of England, but they’re happy to push for arms factories and massive radar farms in some of the most beautiful parts of our country.

“John Healey’s suggested 1,000 jobs across 13 sites is not a very significant number of jobs at all for the privilege of making Milford Haven—which sits on the UK’s largest high-pressure gas pipeline and is known for a nearby major oil refinery—into even more of a target in wars that the UK Labour government, and perhaps the US arms interests adjacent to it, seem to be only too excited to try and start.

“We find it especially abhorrent that Defence Secretary John Healey is now parroting the US's aggressive rhetoric, using phrases such as “war fighting readiness" when a nation's priority should always be to strive towards maintaining peace, not pushing for war.

“Have we learned nothing from the aggressive colonial wars of Iraq or Afghanistan? Hundreds of thousands of people from all nations died as a result of the UK propping up US aggression purely for the sake of US supremacy and domination of oil and resources.

“We do not need a US-run DARC space wars radar in Pembrokeshire, and a munitions factory in Milford Haven would bring a pitiful number of jobs for how much of a military target it would make a town on a high-pressure gas pipeline. It would bring absolutely nothing positive to the area.

“Military spending is the worst type of public spending in terms of boosting an economy. After fifteen years of austerity and cuts to our social infrastructure, we need investment in public services and to reverse the cost of living crisis far more than we need to exacerbate the decline in people's living standards by siphoning yet more profits to arms companies and military producers.”

“Agitation for war is an extremely polluting and high carbon exercise. To tackle the climate emergency and provide high skilled, secure jobs in Pembrokeshire we need massive investment in green jobs as part of a coherent green industrial strategy.

“The UK government claims these moves are about Russia, but given that Russia was always highly unlikely to attempt open warfare with the whole of Europe and NATO combined, we’re far more concerned about the government escalating tensions with China.

“The rhetoric coming from our leaders seems to be attempting to manufacture a consensus view that China is a huge global threat, but when you consider that the US has over 750 military bases around the world where China has none, and the fact that the US has been involved in wars with almost every country on earth whereas China has been involved in no foreign wars since 1991, it begs the question: who are the real aggressors here? And why should the UK blindly follow the US war drive when there is no evidence that we are under threat?”

The anti radar Campaign has recently gained increased political support with a Statement of Opinion opposing DARC being signed by a third of Welsh Senedd members and a similar EDM (Early Day Motion) named DARC in Wales gaining cross party support from MP's in Westminster.

The spokesperson for DARC added: “Both Plaid Cymru and the Green Party have officially supported the campaign which tells us they remain resolutely against DARC Radar or any munitions factory in Milford Haven and are ready to fight any planning applications "if ever submitted".

“A big shake up of the Senedd is expected in the next Senedd elections in May 2026 which will see a change of the voting system to proportional representation and an increase to 96 MS’s as well as votes for 16 to 18s, therefore the probability of a progressive coalition government in Wales comprised of Plaid Cymru, Greens and Lib Dems which is likely to be far less sympathetic to DARC or any further militarism of Wales.”