A NEW military village of single-soldier living accommodation of 378 bedrooms has been handed over by Aspire Defence to the Royal Artillery at Larkhill.

Work only began ten months ago on the first of 1,300 new bedrooms in the garrison to house the soldiers who are returning from Germany and being relocated from Tidworth.

A symbolic block was opened by Commander Home Command, Lieutenant General James Bashall, who unveiled a commemorative plaque and then inspected the new accommodation unit.

He complemented the Aspire team on delivering the buildings on time and explained the need to provide high standard living accommodation for troops returning from Germany. He went on to say that the aim was to give this standard to all single soldiers but was not always possible.

The plan to provide a total of 2640 new single soldier units was on time and on target for autumn 2019 when the last of the units return from Germany

Larkhill Garrison is being transformed with demolitions and new buildings taking place everywhere. The new Garrison complex is being divided into residential and technical areas to separate living and working space and trying to give the residential area a ‘campus’ feel.

The rows of serried barrack blocks are gone with buildings offset and green areas between the units giving a more relaxed feel. There are16 single en suite rooms on each floor with a communal lounge equipped with sink, fridge and microwave oven, a utility room with three washing machines and three tumble driers and a baggage room for storage.

I spoke to Bombardier Sean Gavin from 21 Air Assault Battery of 32 Regiment RA who had just moved into his room. “It’s brilliant, I love it,” said Sean. “Compared to our old blocks it is brilliant, in nine years in the Army I have never had new accommodation, to come here is a great morale booster.”

“You wake up in brand new rooms, you feel good throughout the day. It’s well planned they have thought of everything, you’ve got you baggage store, boot cleaning stations outside, there’s more than one washing machine and drier and a communal room to bring cohesion with the lads.”

Deputy Garrison Commander, Lieutenant Colonel David Penniall was pleased with the progress so far, “We are on target for September 2019,” he said. “I am going over to Germany shortly to brief 26 Regiment RA who is coming here and will be telling them what a great place to live and work it is.”

“There will be six Royal Artillery Regiments at Larkhill by October ’19 and this has created a great deal of disruption, we have kept it to a minimum on camp but off camp, which is outside my control, unfortunately there has been more disruption which will continue until the end of the year.”