Helicopter search and rescue for Caernarfon, St Athan 26 March 2013 Last updated at 11:20 Helicopter search and rescue will move to Caernarfon from Anglesey and a new base will be set up at St Athan after a US-based firm won the contract to run the UK service. The Bristow Group has won a 10-year contract from 2015. Under the deal, 22 helicopters will operate from 10 UK locations, including Caernarfon in north Wales and St Athan in the the south. The £1.6bn deal ends 70 years of search and rescue from the RAF and Royal Navy. The contract will mean the end of search and rescue operations at RAF Valley on Anglesey. Its base will be relocated to Caernarfon, though the RAF base will remain at Valley. A new base will also be opened at MoD St Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan. Two helicopters will be based at both sites. Aviation analyst Chris Yates said the two new Welsh bases would allow the service to provide extended coverage. He told BBC Radio Wales: "Wales is doing extremely well out of it. There's some very difficult terrain right across the country, of course, and often at times people do get into difficulty. We've seen people rescued off Snowdonia recently and there's a whole chunk of the Irish Sea that helicopters based up in Caernarfon would operate out to in the event of a marine incident. Anglesey MP Albert Owen described it as a "negative step." He said a lot of money had been invested in making RAF Valley a centre of excellence for search and rescue, adding that the UK government was "doing this to save money - yet they are gambling with lives." Former Plaid Cymru leader Ieuan Wyn Jones, the Welsh assembly member for the island, also criticised the decision to move a "much-valued service" from Valley. Step into the unknown "The sell-off is a step into the unknown in that we cannot be certain that it would provide service equal to that provided by the RAF," said Mr Jones. The government has not got a good record on privatising similar services and we remember that the Department of Transport itself has not got a good record, bearing in mind the mess up over rail franchising. The UK government says the new search and rescue structure means helicopters will be able to reach a larger area of the UK within one hour of take-off than is currently possible. It also estimates, based on historic data, that there will be an overall improvement in flying times to incidents of around 20%, from 23 to 19 minutes. Bristow's website says its helicopters and pilots have already rescued more than 7,000 people in the UK. The other current search and rescue (SAR) bases are Culdrose, Wattisham, Valley, Boulmer, Portland, Lee-on-Solent, Chivenor, Leconfield, Lossiemouth and Prestwick.