Thousands of British military personnel and their families are set to benefit from an additional £1.5 billion in funding aimed at improving accommodation across the UK Armed Forces.

This substantial investment will be formally announced as part of the government's forthcoming Strategic Defence Review (SDR).

The new funding will be directed towards urgent repairs and maintenance, addressing issues such as unreliable boilers, leaky roofs, and damp and mould in service family accommodation. It will also support the development of new forces housing, leveraging the potential for housing development on surplus Ministry of Defence (MOD) land.

This additional £1.5bn brings the total projected expenditure on service family accommodation and new single living accommodation to more than £7bn over the current Parliament. The generational renewal of Armed Forces accommodation will be guided by the forthcoming Defence Housing Strategy, which has already seen the introduction of a new Consumer Charter to enhance housing standards for forces families.


Defence Secretary, John Healey MP, stated: "Our Armed Forces personnel make extraordinary sacrifices to serve our country. For too long, many military families have lived in sub-standard homes, but this government is taking decisive action to fix the dire state of military accommodation and ensure that our heroes and their loved ones live in the homes they deserve."

He added: "We are investing and acting fast, to fix forces housing and renew the nation’s contract with those who serve and deliver on our Plan for Change."

The new Consumer Charter is set to facilitate immediate investment in the urgent renovation of 1,000 homes identified as being in the most critical need of repair. The Charter will also introduce fundamental consumer rights for forces families, including essential property information, higher move-in standards, more reliable repairs, the assignment of a named housing officer to every family, and access to a robust complaints system.

This record investment follows the government's previous agreement to bring 36,000 military homes back into public ownership, a key pledge by the Prime Minister. The SDR's terms of reference explicitly commit to placing "Defence personnel…at the heart of Defence’s plans," with a focus on improving overall military accommodation standards and prioritising sites requiring the most urgent repairs.

This announcement also comes on the heels of an above-inflation pay rise for the Armed Forces, confirmed by the government last week. This marks the second such pay increase since July last year, with the previous award being the largest for Armed Forces personnel in over two decades.