Military wife campaigner says service housing maintenance system 'is chaos'
A campaigner has told Forces News the system for military accommodation "is in chaos".
Military wife Lucy Thomas-Harle is campaigning for families amid heavy criticism of firms maintaining Armed Forces accommodation.
She told us the conditions faced by some are unacceptable: "I've looked around me at some of my neighbours, there has been black mould, catastrophic floods, loss of heating and hot water, and it's just not good enough.
"People live through freezing conditions before Christmas with no heating or hot water, with Pinnacle saying they couldn't fix it for five days.
"If you've got a baby in your house, that's simply not OK."
Ms Thomas-Harle, who hasn't suffered major issues at her home, feels the system itself does not help people find quick solutions: "You're also not allowed to go and seek help yourself. You have to wait for their engineers to come to you, so you're literally trapped in a freezing home.
"For those who've had catastrophic floods, there have been four houses in our area, so out of about 100 houses, there have been four catastrophic floods.
"It's just crazy and it's really impacting people's lives."
The military campaigner explained that it seems the wait for engineers has worsened since April 2022 when the contract changed. New contractors took over who, she says, do not have enough people in their call centres.
"Calls go unanswered for hours and there's also a disconnect between the call centre and then those carrying out the repairs because you have three different providers, so it's certainly got a lot messier since then," she explained.
Ms Thomas-Harle also says the contract itself has changed, so loss of heating and hot water has no longer to be dealt with within 24 hours – it is now 48 hours, not including the weekend.
She told Forces News: "There is no join-up between the various providers. You might not get through, if you do get through, they don't know when you're going to get an appointment.
"If you phone them again, to check on progress, they have no record that you've called before, so you have to start all over again.
"The whole system is chaos."
Having been a military wife for years, Ms Thomas-Harle told us about the worst example she has seen: "Over Christmas, there's a family here who have been living in a Premier Inn for a month because they suffered a catastrophic flood.
"They had been warning for months about black mould in their home. Not necessarily knowing the true cause, and because nobody comes to investigate, that then became a catastrophic flood which could have been prevented.
"They lost loads of possessions, they lived in a Premier Inn over Christmas, they caught pneumonia and they also got married during that period, so for their marriage and for their Christmas, they were living in a Premier Inn. It's just horrendous."
In a statement, the MOD said: "Some personnel and their families are not receiving the level of accommodation services they deserve.
"The Defence Secretary and defence ministers are receiving daily updates on progress to resolve these problems and holding contractors to account."
Contractors responsible for fixing issues with military housing have been told to improve or face consequences, including financial penalties, if things don't improve by the end of January.
Anger over the alleged problems in the military housing repair system prompted urgent questions to be asked in the House of Commons, with ministers warning contractors to sort themselves out.
The organisation that oversees Service Family Accommodation wrote a letter to personnel living in the housing to outline how it is aiming to improve standards which are currently "below that which we had promised".
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