THOUSANDS of aerospace jobs are secure for 30 years after a £200bn military contract was awarded to the UK.

The decision by the US Department of Defence last week was a triumph for BAE's Warton and Samlesbury site, near Preston, where workers have lived with the threat of redundancies for years.

And work on the Joint Strike Fighter Programme is also expected to create thousands of new jobs in Lancashire.

The Lockheed Martin consortium, supported by BAE Systems, beat competitor Boeing, who would have taken the programme out of Lancashire, to win the contract.

BAE will complete 15 per cent of the work for Lockheed on the 3,000 JSF aircraft for the US and British military.

Preston MP Mark Hendrick warned that missing out on the contract would have threatened 2,000 jobs around Preston and signal the end of military aircraft production in the UK. Today he said Preston's economy had received a boost that would last for decades.

"This decision will create thousands of jobs over the next 25 to 30 years in the Preston area," he said, "and generate billions of pounds which will be pumped into the Lancashire economy."

"The jobs will not only benefit those who will be working in the industry, because the spending power of these new employees will feed through to many other businesses in Lancashire."

"For BAE Systems to gain such a significant chunk of this work from Lockheed is a major coup."

Stephen Henwood, group managing director of programmes for BAE Systems, said: "This is an important aircraft for the UK armed forces and a vital industrial programme for the North West.

"This secures thousands of jobs over the next 30 years at BAE Systems' sites in the area."

BAE Systems will now start the aircraft's development by designing the mission and vehicle systems, autonomic logistics and airframes, the fuselage, and horizontal and vertical tails and the win fold mechanism.

The JSF will be produced for the US Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. It will also replace the Harrier and F16 for the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force.

Experts predict it will make many of the world's most powerful planes obsolete. It will be capable of vertical landing and a maximum speed of 1,200mph.