Helen Morgan has urged the Government to sort out substandard forces accommodation after a survey revealed military morale to be at rock bottom.
New figures from the Ministry of Defence show morale in the armed forces has dropped to a five-year low, with frustration particularly widespread due to the standard of military accommodation.
Just one in five servicemen and woman are satisfied with the speed and quality of maintenance repairs to their properties, the annual survey shows.
MP Helen Morgan has been working closely with families at RAF Shawbury to help fix long-running accommodation problems and said the new figures must act as a wake-up call to the Government.
Helen Morgan, Liberal Democrat MP for North Shropshire, said, “This survey shows morale is at rock bottom among our brave service men and women and must act as a wake-up call for the Government.
“We rely on our armed forces to keep us safe and it is simply not good enough that they are forced to live in cold, faulty and mouldy homes.
“Here in North Shropshire, families with young children have been left with leaking roofs for years and without heating for weeks due to being messed around by contractors.
“Many of the personnel I’ve spoken to are now weighing up whether it is worth continuing with their military careers when that means putting up with such poor conditions.
“The Government urgently needs to sort out its maintenance contracts and must act to bring service family accommodation up to standard.”
Military families have been left exasperated by the service provided by Pinnacle, the company contracted to provide customer service by the Ministry of Defence. Issues have included waits of over a year for faults to be fixed, the wrong contractors being sent and calls and complaints not being logged.
Helen has brought issues in North Shropshire directly to the attention of the Government and has met senior bosses from the contractors and the Defence Infrastructure Organisation to ensure problems with accommodation are fixed as soon as possible.
North Shropshire MP Helen Morgan has continued her ongoing campaign for improvements to military housing in the county, once again raising the state of mouldy housing at Clive Barracks with the Defence Minister in front of the Commons.
North Shropshire MP Helen Morgan yesterday contributed to a Westminster Hall debate on the state of military accommodation, telling MPs and the Minister for Defence of issues in her constituency.
