‘Horrendous Army housing driving servicemen to leave’

SERVICEMEN and women are quitting the Armed Forces because of a collapse in the maintenance standards of family homes, as satisfaction levels drop to a seven-year low, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

A National Audit Office (NAO) report found that satisfaction levels about the standard of Army accommodation was at 50 per cent – its lowest for seven years, after falling off markedly in 2015 and the first part of this year.

Fewer than a third – 32 per cent – of members of the Forces living in family accommodation were satisfied with responses for maintenance requests, and 29 per cent were satisfied with “quality of maintenance”.

The number of complaints about maintenance at service families’ accommodation jumped from 651 in April last year to 1,433 in February this year, the NAO found.

A Ministry of Defence ( MoD) survey in April found 87 per cent of 50,000 service family homes “meet or exceed” its decent homes standard. This means that 13 per cent are not in a reasonable state of repair.

The findings come as senior figures from the MoD – including the department’s permanent secretary Stephen Lovegrove – and a private contractor which manages the estate, face MPs on the Public Accounts committee later today.

Anne Marie Trevelyan, a Tory member of the committee, said she had been contacted by 1,000 military families complaining about delays and quality of maintenance of their homes. She said: “Some of the stories have been horrendous – it is just appalling. There’s a serious retention risk from the hous- ing offer. It’s just not good enough.” A MoD spokesman said: “This is a matter of huge importance to the MOD and we have invested £660 million in service housing over the last six years.

“No properties which are below Decent Homes standards are now allocated to service personnel.”

The Royal Navy faces a “bloody dangerous” delay in replacing its ageing frigates because the MoD has run out of money to order them, a former First Sea Lord has told MPs. Further delays to the long-awaited Type 26 frigates will leave the Navy with a “grossly inadequate” fleet, Lord West of Spithead told the defence select committee.