Hundreds of military families are living in substandard housing

Hundreds of military families are living in substandard Service houses, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Almost 600 homes do not reach the official criteria for ‘decent’ accommodation – the legal minimum standard which means it is in a reasonable state of repair.

It comes as Air Commodore James Savage, the head of Armed Forces accommodation, admitted that 8,000 repairs on military homes related to issues such as damp, black mould and heating are yet to be completed and that it would take months to resolve.

Defence chiefs last month withheld payments to the private firms involved with repairs as thousands of military personnel waited for work on squalid homes.

The Government was forced to hold daily briefings from military housing bosses in January following a series of MoS reports on the conditions endured by military families in freezing and damp homes.

It must also have ‘effective insulation and efficient heating’, but notes that ‘damp or cold hazard’ may be permitted if the house meets other criteria, such as having a kitchen less than 20 years old and a bathroom less than 30 years old.

Defence Minister Alex Chalk revealed in a written statement last week that 585 military homes occupied by troops and their families do not meet this standard as of March 1

Despite this rudimentary definition, Defence Minister Alex Chalk revealed in a written statement last week that 585 military homes occupied by troops and their families do not meet this standard as of March 1.

The Head of Armed Forces Accommodation, Air Commodore James Savage, also admitted that a further 8,322 repairs relating to issues such as damp, black mould and heating were yet to be resolved.

He told Soldier Magazine: ‘Direct-level meetings are still happening two or three times a week.

‘There is very close engagement and close supervision of what they are doing, and we absolutely intend to do so until the standard of performance is up to the degree required.

‘Realistically, that is not going to happen overnight. It is months’ work to get to that point, but we are not accepting anything below what we set out in the contracts’.

The government was forced to hold daily briefings from military housing bosses in January following a series of MoS reports on the dilapidated conditions endured by military families in freezing and damp homes.

Last month defence chiefs withheld payments to the firms involved as thousands of troops and their families continued to wait for repairs to squalid homes.

Troops from the First Queen’s Dragoon Guards, a senior army regiment known as The Welsh Cavalry, are among those affected.

Reverand Ailsa Whorton, who manages pastoral care for the guards, said last week that housing issues made troops feel undervalued, leading them to think they were ‘not important enough to have [their] roof fixed’.