SLAM is indeed hugley expensive - our FMS people have been talking about 60-70k per bedspace. As the 'owner' of a SLAM block I can vouch for previous posters' claims that despite the huge cost it was definitely built by the lowest bidder - although superficially excellent the fixtures started falling off in the first week of occupation and in 10 year's time it's going to be pretty tatty. Once the current projects are finished there aren't going to be any more, so MoD are being disingenuous when they imply that all will be rosy when the project is over. When SLAM was offered my station asked if they could have the money but project manage ourselves through local contractors to get a far better deal. No prizes for guessing the answer to that one!
No money has been spent on the FQs on my unit for several years and slowly but surely they are deteriorating as a result. As someone who has been a landlord of a property as well as a DHE tenant I don't know how they get away with the service they provide. I can't help but feel that the estate is being deliberately run down do reduce occupancy levels to the point where it can be argued that quaters aren't needed any more and the whole lot can be sold off to civilians. Or pehaps the more rational explanation is that the original sell-off was an ill-conceived plan to raise a quick buck with insufficient regard to the long term consequences, but now that MoD realise this it's all too late and too expensive to do anything about it.
At least it's encouraging to see this becoming an issue in the media, perhaps we'll get a hastily thrown together initiative to paper over the cracks in the next few weeks...