Lieutenant Colonel Gordon retired from his full time role of Commandant Altcar Training Camp on 26 June 2024 having been in post for just over 11 years.
These 11 years have included a number of activities that were over and above his normal day to day job description. Most notably was his support to United Kingdom operations – floods, fire strike, ambulance strike, the Liverpool bombing and, most notably, his support to the COVID 19 where he facilitated 5 x Regimental/Battalion HQs on Altcar with the 1200 troops housed in Pontin’s (Southport). During COVID 19, Altcar Training Camp never closed – indeed it had to be open over the first COVID Christmas/New Year as we had over 100 Gurkha soldiers on site.
Throughout his tenure as Commandant, Altcar Training Camp continued to provide a quite fantastic output annually to well over 100,000 regulars, reservists, cadet force adult volunteers and the cadets who have used the facilities. Not included is the annual figure of another 12,000 daily users of the site. The increase in use has been significant over the time Gordon was commandant Leading from the front, Lt Col Black, with his quite excellent team, kept Altcar Training Camp very much the premier training area and range complex across the North of England – and indeed wider. The complex is in great demand and as COVID is a thing of the immediate past, we saw and continue to see a surge in bookings. This is all testament to the leadership shown by Gordon.
He built a flourishing relationship with the community and various initiatives to further engage have proved to be very fruitful. Gordon also continued with his plan of making camp a better place with improvements where he maintained a programme of continual ideas, within funding levels, to achieve this. In sum, he has undertaken a stint as commandant being a hugely proud and passionate man who wanted to simply provide the best service possible to the users of Altcar Training Camp supporting Defence outputs. We thank him for his service in the regular Army, as a reservist, as a Police officer and for the last 11 years as Commandant Altcar Training Camp.
Welcome to new Commandant Altcar Training camp – Major (retired) Carl Gardiner
Carl has joined the Altcar Team after almost 37 years in the Infantry, serving firstly with, The 1st Battalion the Kings Regiment and secondly with The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment. Carl is keen to continue the good work of Gordon and move Altcar forward to meet the future operational needs of the military. Carl is married to Evelyn and has a son and a daughter and four amazing grandkids. In his own time, Carl enjoys his time with his family and is a keen Liverpool fan.