news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6229393.stm


Ooooh. About time too.

Don't hold your breath. We're hardly going to starts riots and smash our accommodation up like prisoners and asylum seekers. We are lowlife so get treated like such.

Just been on the news.

"has the government betrayed the military covenant?

FFS someone kick bliar out, He cant be enjoyinghte view from the top anymore so why is he holding on?

just been on the news.....they were asking for people to go to
www.bbc.co.uk/haveyoursay

And right on cue, on comes the Government 'Spinister' Twigg to say what a wonderful programme of improvement is ongoing.

Not enough and not fast enough.

The MoD doesn't like us improving our accommodation does it?

(IIRC) 700 Million spent on accomodation.

Is that cash going to external contractors like sodexho (and their shareholders)?
Is it being spent on improving, maintaining or just the day-to-day running?
Is that money from the treasury or is that the cash taken back from serving soldiers' Wages in order to pay for their accomodation?

Grassy knoll - back and to the right! Someone please!

Last edited by Pillager on Wed Jan 03, 2007 10:14 pm; edited 2 times in total

My opinion?

Peeling paint and mould, broken doors and ripped carpets should be dealt with immediately by the system. Underinvestment is rife and is shameful.

Dirty baths? Clean it yourselves you fezzing bastards. Who do you think cleans my quarter?

The programme for improvement is slow because its being handled as a defence wide issue, bit by bit so that by the time its all done the first to be improved will be ready for demolishing.

Until the programme is broken down into smaller chunks were stuck with it. A university wouldnt wait for the department of education to instigate an improvement programme for its halls of residence. The money would be raised locally, from both government and private sources and the project for improvement would be handled locally.

Why are we not doing this? I dont mean at individual barrack level, but Brigade or Divisional level. Surely breaking the project up would mean speedier results? Or is the money or will just not there?

And quite predictably, alot of the comments being made to the BBC suggest that the soldiers clean the bath!!

This is what life is like in Dalton Barracks, Abingdon


The Officers’ Mess needs work to comply with current fire legislation (est 70k), that money has not been found despite it being on a works services priority for the last two years. The consequence has been the closure of a complete wing. The Commanding Officer has to take the health and safety of his officers at risk. The decision point is about to be reached, where the CO has told the chain of command that unless rectification work is started in the next month 35 living-in single officers will be moved into private accommodation in Abingdon, (at a cost in the first 6 months that far exceed the work required to the Mess), needless to say there is rarely any hot water either.

The soldiers are in just as bad accommodation. Only one block is Grade 1, so 150 solders have the ‘jam tomorrow’ promised accommodation. The vast majority live in accommodation not changed since being built in 1932, except that no money has been spent since.

Let me give you just one example of the service we have to put up with and manage in terms of the soldiers expectations. New white goods were purchased under a budgetary funding line to provide new washing machines and dryers for every wing of every block. They arrived brand new, but when they were placed in the accommodation it was found that the plumbing and water pressure in the accommodation could not sustain their usage – so they were withdrawn and remain in our QM’s store! No money to update the plumbing.

We were informed at the beginning of this FY that all works services (ie infrastructure repair) was to be frozen within Abingdon (it actually was much more wide spread within the region). The impact of this was that simple repairs, loo seats, broken showers went un-repaired. I had to explain this to my soldiers. The position changed in the second half of the FY and we now have a slightly improved situation.

Finally the most disgraceful situation is that our medical centre is not fit for purpose. The Army Primary Health Care service has stated that the med centre it is not fit for its clinical need, yet monies needed for refurbishment or replacement do not exist. We have to employ a corporal to drive a mini bus of sick soldiers to Aldershot to be treated in Frimely Park instead. Yet both regiment are trying to generate fit soldiers for Iraq and Afgan next year. Commander Field Army has visited Abingdon, it remains 4 Div’s highest priority, yet all we see are aspirations and promises. I will not discuss the holes in the roads, no lighting across the camp, but guess what the chain of command’s solution is – they are trying to squeeze another Regiment in here in 2008!!

Sir Mike Jackson hit out at a "Kafkaesque situation whereby the MoD congratulates itself on achieving an accommodation improvement plan defined by itself on what it calls affordability, but which is far from what is defined by the needs of soldiers and their families".


Kafkaesque- having a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or illogical quality.
Good Word could put that in any sentence describing MOD/Govt spending.

"One soldier mentioned that there was a large mushroom growing above his bed. Pick it off and wipe the area with some bleach and it will be ghone."

Steve Jones, Plymouth

Think he missed the point that I have no mushrooms growing in my flat due to central heating keeping the place warm and more importantly DRY.

"The BBC should come to see my classroom. I am a teacher.Its appalling. What is more improtant? Our next generation is having to be taught in this slum which passes as my teaching base. The army's whingeing doesnt hold water with me."

Kibster

I fear with teachers like this the battle for the next generation is already lost...

Twigg reckons that £700 million has been spent and that some accommodation is still not up to scratch. Too bloody right its 'not up to scratch' - in 22 years service through the ranks I have never been in any single soldier accommodation that was ever class as grade 1 (except where the QM had fiddled the grading). And too many of my married friends have had to put up with slums as well.

Gen Viggers (as quoted on the 10 o'clock news) seemed to just refer to MQ - well I hope he also recognises single soldier's accommodation is pants as well.

Politicians seem to believe that we all come from Victorian slum homes where we have shared a single bed with twelve siblings, and therefore we would be grateful for a two foot wide bed with a plastic matress in a three metre bed space.

The great British public needs to understand we are not just bleating about minor inconveniences, but conditions that put the health of our families and soldiers at risk. Civy landlords would have been prosecuted for some of the slums our soldiers endure. It would be nice for our soldiers to have better quality accommodation at homes than that they experience in Basra or Helmand.

But of course press interest will not last long enough for any pressure to be applied to the Treasury. There is occassional interest in the papers, even the odd letter in the pages of Soldier Magazine, but it is soon eclipsed by the next big story to hit Reuters.

Interceptor - if you had taken a walk round your soldiers accommodation as I have you would well appreciate that some facilities are in such rag order that they cannot be cleaned. If the resources aren't there to fix stuff the rest of the facilities get over used and break even more quickly.

What an awful choice of picture from the beeb, that bath isn't due to poor accomodation (of which there are thousands of images to more suitably illustrate this), it's because some minger(s) haven't bothered cleaning it for months.

Great that this is getting some exposure, but not like this.

There’s a few people on the BBC have your say saying that their time in the forces back in the day, NCOs and Officers done regular inspections to make sure the place was kept clean. What’s the difference between then and now? I’m guessing the person is saying that barracks were inspected but the issue is with accommodation that’s not inspected?

Last edited by here_be_mike on Wed Jan 03, 2007 10:40 pm; edited 3 times in total

Yep - you are right

It's all bolleaux and I have written to the beeb to tell them so. Who the hell would live in accom like that? Not even the feckin Pioneer Corps. What sgt would let his troop take over accom without even cleaning it.

That was pure ming and the only people who live with ming are mingers. I've lived in tents which were cleaner.

So the entire story is rubbish - as always. Concocted, invented and not true. No soldier would live that way.

Thanks for posting that, it gives a real insight for those of us on the outside.

Regards,

Ex STAB

I would have to agree; you would need to be an ayslum seeker to have a bath like that in your accommodation.
Please don't don't tell me standards have slipped that much since I have been out.