And I'm not sure that this will actually improve things... https://www.gov.uk/government/news/m...supply-base--2 As soon as someone says vision and programme of major projects you know it's going to be a cluster.

The description of RAFC Cranwell is a sad tale, but Whittle Hall was in a poor state in 2014 last time I visited. But it is the same across the estate (apart from the new gin palaces, but how long have they actually been built to last for?!).

That was pretty standard on many of the stations that I was on, for both officers and airmen. I was in surplus MQs on several occasions and loved it as a change from mess accomodation: all the joys of living out without the costs and commute.

I was a pilot while I was serving and have never worked in DIO, or DE, or anything else infra-related, but I am reliably informed DIO uses lots of civil engineers, including those of the RE! The issue has always been lack of investment, or rather a budget that was not big enough to do everything that was required. From the HQ level, the infra budget was an easy target, so it was inevitably reduced - the station I was on was given 10% of the 'operationally essential' works budget one year. That meant prioritising in the certain knowledge that deferred work was only going to get more expensive. When faced with a choice between doing preventive maintenance on a flat roof or sorting out the erratic power supply to the runway lights, it isn't actually a choice at all.

The system has never been perfect (and often far from it) but it remains to be seen whether managing spending priorities from HQ AIR will have the impact that people seem to be looking for.

My wife was moved out of the WRAF wing of her Mess in 1980 due to overcrowding and infrastructure issues. Her intelligent stn cdr designated an empty MQ as a Mess Annexe for her use, which we would both occupy a few months later as our/her MQ. Thanks, Boss!

Mate of mine, after leaving the RAF as a stacker, joined the Prison service and was posted to Pentonville......the accom provided was a block of flats which was originally Met Police married, then single, then Prison service married, then single accom .......the electricity and heating bills for the flats exceeded those of Pentonville by, ahem, "a considerable margin "

In the late 1970s I was in MQs at RAF Odiham. The garden backed onto that of another MQ on a parallel road. It was empty for a while then allocated to three single officers (the infamous, now sadly late, Scotty Weir being one of them).

Shortly after they moved in I noticed a large grey horse with its head over my fence, eating my flowers and the near edge of my lawn. The singlies had borrowed it from the Boss's wife to "mow" their back lawn and it obviously decided the grass was greener.....

ShyTorque are you sure it wasn't a unicorn eating roses? As recounted by James Thurber....

In the airmans quarters there was a garage block and a cable appeared over the fence, investigation revealed a fridge freezer and fridge in one married couples garage being powered by an extension cable slung over the fence into a singly block and plugged in with a do not remove label by the socket.

Was that one of the horses that used to reside at the end of the lazy runway as you wandered round the peritrack to the OCU? I used to give them the odd apple on the way to work.

Fortissimo, IIRC all works costed and the wush list forwarded to Infra where they were categorized A-D. A was sub-divided along the lines of H&S and operationally essential. The higher command would then divide the cake much as you describe.

Category D was 'never in a month of Sundays after a blue moon'

However if the pot was large enough you might 'lose' a Category A works (change of requirement) and move that door that the new Stn Cdr didn't like :). Then there was that annual end of year surplus; spend it or lose it. The footpath across the MQ sports pitch at Lyneham for the 5th Nov bonfire springs to mind.

Managed decline of quarters
 

A couple of weeks ago we visited some friends in SFA (quarters) near London. The gas hob had been condemned and a small roof leak- where the flashing had moved because the mortar on a chimney had failed - had not been replaced or fixed after 7 weeks. The small leak has got bigger and now the ceiling in a bedroom will need replacing. It transpired that the helpline call handler didn’t know what roof flashing was, so didn’t assign a priority to the job. With the gas job similar ignorance was displayed. The call handler said you can use the other three gas Hobbs if you wish. It never dawned on the eu staff rhat you can’t use acondemned gas appliance. I’m so pleased that we broke away from quarters years ago.

WUH, same with an electric hob at Halton a few years ago.

But with contract maintained housing you have some strange anomalies. At Shriv one patch had roof tiles and ridge tiles falling off H&S didn't seem to apply. At an adjacent patch maintained by Servo they painted the dummy grey plastic chimney pots clay red.

ORANGE.
ORANGE

OMQs at Rheindahlen c. 1976.

Carpets.
Loose covers for chairs easy.
Curtains.

And when one went on a safari supper round the patch

ORANGE.

We have hated orange ever since.

MQ maintenance
 

Marching in to our quarter at the REU,as it was then, I enquired of the families officer the possibility of redecoration, "no funds Paul, got plenty of paint, you can do it yourself if you like". Which I didn't.

Fast forward a month or so and the FO's car appears in my workshop for routine maintenance.
I place 5ltrs of oil, and a set of filters on the passenger seat and instruct the MT controller to return it to the FO, with my compliments, he's welcome to to use a bay to do the work.
Phone call 10 minutes later, "Touche, send J (SWMBO) round to look at some colour charts"
Quarter redecorated and a terrific ongoing relationship with the FO for the next 8 years
PM

Funding for Infra was largely delegated back to the TLBs on 1 April this year, so the RAF is now in control of some its budget and the planning for Infra.

The WOs & Sgts Mess is what used to be Trenchard Hall Officers mess. The original NCOs Mess is now the Stn Education Centre.