Helen Morgan is calling on the Government to hold the contractors responsible for military accommodation to account after hearing from local families living in cold, damp and mould-ridden homes.
The North Shropshire MP has been working to help the families of personnel based at RAF Shawbury who have had to put up with dire service from the contractors responsible for maintaining their homes.
She is now calling for contracts to be removed if the companies responsible do not urgently improve their performance.
One family have been waiting more than a year for their damp and mould problem to be fixed, another has been waiting three months for a hole in their wall to be repaired and one couple went a month without heating after a pipe in their home burst [SEE CASE STUDIES BELOW].
Pilots, air traffic controllers and their families have been forced to spend hours on hold waiting to book an appointment, only for the appointments to be missed or wrongly allocated which has led to electricians turning up to fix guttering.
One family described it as “by far the worst experience of service and response to issues I have experienced, and previously we lived in accommodation in Cyprus with cockroaches and gas leaks”.
Responsibility lies with contractors Pinnacle, who are responsible for the call centres and organising appointments, and Amey, who are responsible for carrying out or subcontracting the repairs.
Frequent issues include:
Helen Morgan, Liberal Democrat MP for North Shropshire, said, “We ask our armed forces to put their lives on the line for us. They should be able to rely on having a warm, mould-free home to live in.
“I’ve been shocked to hear about the dire state of so many military homes in North Shropshire and across the country.
“It’s clear that a large percentage of forces accommodation is not up to standard and that families are being failed by contractors.
“These contractors are raking in huge fees from the Government but are not fulfilling their duty. The families I’ve spoken to are all very happy with the support they’re getting from the RAF, but this is being undermined by Pinnacle and Amey.
“Nobody should have to wait a month to have a pipe fixed in the middle of winter. Nobody should have to scrape mould off the walls or wait more than a year for their damp problem to be solved.
“These families aren’t asking for much – they’re asking for their homes to be safe, warm and dry. The Government must act to upgrade service accommodation and either properly police contractors or take their contracts off them.”
Helen has raised the issue in the House of Commons and is meeting with Pinnacle and Amey in the near future having raised multiple complaints on behalf of RAF Shawbury personnel who have suffered as a result of the contractors’ service.
She has also written directly to the Ministry of Defence and is calling for the contracts to be withdrawn if Pinnacle and Amey do not improve their performance.
Four case studies are detailed below...
Case study 1: Couple’s Christmas nightmare
Olympic skier Charlie Guest and her RAF pilot partner were forced to go three weeks without running water and a further 10 days without heating due to repeated delays getting serious repairs.
When a pipe burst in their home at RAF Shawbury on December 17, they had to wait until January 10 for it be repaired. The contractor described the pipework as “the worst he had ever seen” and added insulation for the first time. Seven days layer the boiler broke. Despite it snowing outside and temperatures hovering around 0C, it took four days for temporary heaters to be provided and 10 days for the boiler to be fixed.
Charlie says the military housing system is broken and is having a major impact on personnel and their families and leading to some quitting for civilian life.
Charlie, a 29-year-old Olympic skier, said, “The system is broken. It’s not even a little bit broken, completely dysfunctional in its current state. It just feels like these contractors are being given money to do a job and they're just not doing anything until we expend significant energy and get outside influence involved.
“The same problems are being reported by pretty much everyone who lives here.
“The lack of urgency and lack of communication is incredibly frustrating and leads to a total distrust of the system and distrust of the people who are managing our housing.
“What is frustrating is that Pinnacle can see that I have logged complaints and that I have logged jobs to be done, but then there's a complete lack of communication between Amey and Pinnacle or whoever Pinnacle is using to carry out the jobs. There was nothing on my record that somebody had been around to my house on Wednesday to look at the boiler, so nobody could then help me any further. They had to start a new file, a new job and off we go again with two days wasted.”
“The houses just don't retain heat because the build quality is so low and there's really poor insulation which leads to really high humidity and damp problems.
“So we’re having to use more heating and spend more money on bills in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. I'm paying to run a dehumidifier in my bedroom because obviously I can't be sleeping in 80% humidity and cold.
“This is having a really damaging impact on the community aspect of the married quarters which provides a lifeline and network for families who are constantly having to move around.
“The state of the housing and the failures of the contractors put a huge strain on relationships and on the profession and really detract from the vibrancy of the community as partners and families are deterred from moving in as there is such a bad reputation around the management of SFA.
“The community is already smaller because of the number of houses in such a state of disrepair they can’t be lived in and the number of people being forced to live off patch.
“It is one of the biggest drivers of people leaving for civilian life where they know they’ll be better looked after.”
Case study 2: Family’s moving-in misery
When a young family moved into their home in Shawbury last year, they were greeted by a bedroom that was completely sodden.
They had to run a dehumidifier day and night for seven days to dry the room out after a serious leak the day before they arrived had not been cleaned up.
Having finally settled in, they have faced repeat problems with their boiler in January and had to wait two weeks for electric heaters to be provided for them and their young daughter despite them being promised on the same day.
Case study 3: Smoke alarm not checked for a month
One long-term Shawbury resident and RAF member has had to raise multiple complaints with Pinnacle over the last 12 months for issues ranging from a broken boiler and radiator to failing street lights.
He became used to appointments being missed but thought he would at least get an urgent response when he flagged that his smoke alarm needed repair.
So far he has been waiting more than a month for it to be looked at.
Case study 4: 13 months of mould
One couple moved into North Shropshire in November 2021 only to find the roof in their new home leaking, with a water ingress and mould in the main bedroom.
Since then they have repeatedly had appointments cancelled and have raised complaints with the DIO, Amey and Pinnacle.
The problem has still not been fixed after 13 months and the family are having to pay to run three dehumidifiers to keep the moisture down to an acceptable level.
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.
