‘Ailing’ military homes face four-year wait for government-funded upgrades

The delay was criticised as “very disappointing” by campaigner and TV star Antony Cotton, according to a report in UK military news outlet BFBS Forces News.

The Defence Investment Plan has upped the budget for government defence spending by £15bn over the next four years.

The extra cash came partly from reprioritising £600m of Ministry of Defence spending, though the government did not specify the projects affected.

It also depends on £2bn of savings from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero over the next four years.

Martin McCluskey, the energy consumers minister, claimed the savings could be found without putting the Warm Homes Plan at risk in an interview with Inside Housing last week.

All departments have been asked to contribute 1p in every pound in their capital budgets towards the plan, which will see nearly £300bn spent on defence over the next four years.

But nearly £5bn of the newly announced spending commitments will only be funded at this autumn’s Budget, when Andy Burnham is widely expected to be in post as prime minister and a new chancellor could potentially be appointed.

Ultimately, out of the £300bn spending power, around £20bn will go on defence infrastructure and estate – including service families and single-living accommodation.

The government will then more than double its investment in this area, to £51bn, between 2030 and 2035.

Besides upgrading military homes, the plan contained some other housing-related news.

It will fund new “one-stop-shops” in communities to support veterans across housing, health and employment, in a bid to end the “fragmented postcode lottery of support services”.

While thousands of homes will wait for work, the 1,200 military homes most in need of improvement have now been upgraded with new kitchens, bathrooms and boilers. 

The government stated that land for 34,000 homes will be released through disposing 35 sites from its defence estate over the next 14 years.

This is a third of the 100,000 potential new homes the government is aiming to unlock through releasing surplus land for development.

But as of April, more than 9,000 service family homes were revealed to be lying empty following a Freedom of Information request by Inside Housing.