Friday 11 January 2008

Deepcut sell-off: Where's the money going?

The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that it intends to close down the controversial Deepcut Barracks in Surrey as part of its review of Army training facilities. The training establishment at Deepcut gained notoriety following the deaths of four recruits based there between 1995 and 2002.
Since those tragic events a lot of hard work has been carried out by the training personnel at Deepcut on turning the place around, improving the facilities provided and re-establishing its reputation for excellence; what is disappointing is this effort has not been recognised by the MoD.
It is believed that the buildings will be bulldozed and the land sold off to property developers. As the site is located in a prime housing area and could accommodate 5,000 new homes, the MoD should be getting a fortune from the sale. Let's hope that they do get the proper market value (as is not always the case) and that the proceeds of the sale are put directly towards providing improved training facilities elsewhere. Unfortunately, what may well happen though is that the loot will get subsumed within the overall MoD budget or put towards off-setting the cost of the war in Iraq.