Ministry of Defence to spend £9bn renovating military housing
Thousands of military homes across the UK will be modernised, refurbished or rebuilt over the next decade under a £9bn government plan to improve defense housing.
The Ministry of Defense’s new housing strategy will see improvements made to almost all of the 47,700 homes for military families, which Defense Secretary John Healey said would be the “biggest refurbishment of Armed Forces housing in more than 50 years”.
The plan has been prepared in response to persistent complaints from serving staff about the accommodation situation.
Dozens of members and their families in 2022 he told the BBC They had to live in unheated, damp, mold-filled houses.
A House of Commons defense committee found last year Two-thirds of the homes of servant families needed “extensive renovation or reconstruction” to meet modern standards.
Under the new strategy, service family accommodation (SFA) will be refurbished with new kitchens, bathrooms and heating systems.
About 14,000 will either receive “significant renewals” or be replaced entirely.
The plans are part of the government’s wider defense housing strategy to be published on Monday. A total of £4 billion in funding has already been announced to solve the housing problem.
The government says it has also identified excess Defense Department land that could be used to build 100,000 new homes for civilian and military families.
Healey said: “This is a new chapter, a stark break from decades of underinvestment with a building program that will support Britain’s military families and stimulate economic growth across the country.”
Almost three years ago, the BBC was contacted by families who had been living for days without heat in military accommodation at Sandhurst.
They said at the time, “We are at a breaking point and something needs to change. The system is broken.”
In response to the story, the Department of Defense said it was working with its contractors to improve the service. But a report published in December last year found these problems “still exist”.
“It is shocking that it will be deemed acceptable to house families in properties known to be damp and moldy until the policy change in 2022,” the report said.
Last year the Ministry of Defense announced it would buy 36,347 military homes from property company Annington Homes for around £6 billion, reversing a privatization deal signed in 1996 under the Conservative government.
The Ministry of Defense said the deal would save millions in rent and maintenance costs, money that would have been spent on repairing military accommodation.
