SLAM

[Whenurhappy]

SLAM - Single Living Accommodation Modernisation was the name of a specific multi-million pound DBM programme delivering new and refurbish accommodation across the three services, partnered with Balfour Beattie. It was a good programme delivering high-quality and sustainable accommodation built to and exceeding JSP standards, but it was killed off by intransigence and, dare I say, some murky collusion at VSO level.

The Army decided to go down the cheap up-front but ruinously expensive PFI route having really poor quality and short-life 'travelodge' style prefab accommodation on a number of sites. I recently visited one of the sites and was shocked - 10 years on - by the poor state of it, compared with proper SLAM.

SLAM was built to an extremely high standard - not only in build quality, but the design was clever, too. All the furniture could be fitted into the store room each bedroom had; the wet room bathroom 'self flushed' every 28 days if the room was unoccupied to protect against Legionella. Moreover the buildings were hardened specifically against IED attack - an effect known as progressive collapse.

But the problem was not the cost (£45K per room - including a 20 year maintenance programme) but the attitude of some - especially in the army - who stoutly opposed single rooms. As Customer 1 for SLAM, I accepted 3 x 3 storied blocks into service on an army camp and a couple of months later the contractors suggested I might want to have a look at them, so I paid the camp a visit whilst scoping a future build. I asked to look at the blocks and was shown around by the Garrison QM. Was I saw reinforced in my mind how little the army regarded their troops.

I looked at one block. Each floor of each wing had a sitting room, a kitchen and a laundry with a drying room, all furnished as part of the deal with decent fittings. In the first wing I looked at, the kitchen had been stripped of its fittings. When I enquired, I was told that the contractors in 'the cook house' had complained that the troops weren't eating there, preferring to prepare snacks in their kitchens So the garrison removed the kitchens (ovens, microwaves, toasters, dishwashers - the lot). The laundries had been similarly stripped of the high quality washing machines and driers which had been moved to a central (and archaic) 'wash-house'. The common room had been turned into another bedroom, with bunks and ****ty 1950s barrack furniture - the large vision panel into the hallway had been covered with MFO cardboard boxes. A couple of soldiers emerged from a room and I asked to have a look - same thing, narrow metal bunks where there had been decent furniture and a queen-sized bed. The QM was rather vague where the fittings had gone. Furthermore, the walls in the corridors were gouged by bike pedals, and there were bikes staked against the fire exit on the the external staircase. I looked out the window, and where there had been covered bike racks, there was just the concrete pad - the shelters had been moved to other parts of the camp because the Garrison Cdr thought they looked untidy!

I went to see the Garrison Cdr - a FTRS appointment - and he told me in no uncertain terms it was his camp, his rules, and that I should go away. I pointed out that the buildings were to be maintained by the contractor - which included fixtures and fittings - and he indicated that the items had been moved to 'where there was greater need', which happened to be the SNCO Mess.

I complained to DE about it and tried to navigate my way around the Byzantine Army CoC to follow it up. I was met by 'meh'. I gave up, went off to Afghanistan and then moved away from the infrastructure world, vowing never to return!