Military housing: Gosport family left with hole in roof and collapsed bedroom ceiling for almost a month with broken heating during cold snap as MPs blast 'unacceptable' conditions

Hayley Hilton and her husband Barry, a Petty Officer onboard HMS Kent, made dozens of calls to military housing contractor Pinnacle after their bedroom ceiling collapsed in Allenby Road, Gosport, on November 22.

It comes as new figures show that one in three service personnel in Hampshire are living in the lowest grade of service accommodation.

Ministry of Defence data uncovered by the Labour Party shows that 1,620 live in housing that has the lowest rating given by the government.

Now hundreds of families across the country – facing mould, broken heating, and crumbling buildings - have been demanding urgent repairs to their homes, including the Hilton family in Gosport.

The family’s ordeal started on November 21 when their electricity cut-out, with a dispatched engineer discovering a hole in their roof and water leaking into an electrical socket.

The residents raised the issue as an emergency - but the next day water damage caused a large part of the bedroom ceiling to collapse right next to the couple’s bed.

After several phone calls to Pinnacle, a VIVO Defence engineer visit was arranged and an engineer fixed the hole in the roof three days later.

But the engineer flagged concerns about asbestos and the bedroom ceiling was left with a gaping hole.

During their wait for repairs, the family suffered from a week-long heating breakdown from Monday, December 5, to Tuesday, December 13, as temperatures plunged to minus three degrees.

Hayley and her 10-month-old granddaughter – who has been staying with the family – both suffered a chest infection during the heating outage.

After being contacted by The News, Pinnacle and VIVO Defence arranged and undertook repairs on the ceiling.

But Hayley has been left feeling outraged by the ordeal.

She said: ‘It's disappointing. Yes, we are paying subsidised rent. But we're still human beings. We still need some sort of comfort in our own home. There's fibreglass everywhere. It's disgusting.

‘We have been passed pillar to post.’

Referring to her original call to Pinnacle regarding her water damaged ceiling, Hayley said: ‘I raised it as emergency. The guy on the phone was very rude. I said, ‘I can see it cracking before my eyes’. I could see the water gathering. He said it wasn’t an emergency.’

Hayley contacted the Naval Family Federation and praised the organisation for their support during the family’s hardship.

She said: ‘They got us some miniature heaters. They were really good.’

Many military families across the country have faced a catalogue of catastrophe, including leaks, extensive mould, broken heating, and collapsed building work.

The News has repeatedly raised this issue over the last decade, with a third of families surveyed saying they were not happy with their military accommodation back in 2019.

Poor housing is a common complaint among other naval families, according to Hayley.

She said: ‘There's quite a lot. My neighbour has seen their bricks have started to crack.’

Now MPs from across the area are calling on the government to focus more attention on military families’ need for good quality housing.

The MP for Portsmouth South, Stephen Morgan, said: ‘The standard of accommodation has been consistently low and getting worse under this government yet nothing’s changed.

‘These conditions wouldn’t be acceptable in civilian life, and they certainly aren’t acceptable for actively serving personnel.

‘This is a far cry from the homes fit for heroes I said our forces personnel and their families deserve, when I raised these concerns in Parliament during the passage of the Armed Forces Bill.’

Penny Mordaunt, MP for Portsmouth North, said the military cannot expect to retain highly trained staff if they have to endure ‘dodgy plumbing’ or cold and damp homes.

She said: ‘All service personnel must have good quality accommodation. It’s not just right to do so, it is an operational requirement.

Caroline Dinenage, the MP for Gosport, said poor quality housing had been ‘an ongoing issue over a number of years’.

She added: ‘However we haven’t had any recent complaints to my office, other than on the accommodation in HMS Collingwood.’

The Fareham base - the Royal Navy’s largest training facility – lost heating and hot water in buildings across the site for several weeks from December 7, according to reports.

Top brass in the navy dispatched contractors to urgently rectify the situation.

For the Hilton family, VIVO Defence arranged for repair teams to visit on December 22.

A VIVO representative said: ‘We regret that the family at this Gosport property have not received the standard of service they should expect.’

Pinnacle, the firm that handled the family’s calls and other service personnel’s accommodation queries nationwide, said ‘a significant minority’ of residents were waiting more than 48 hours for urgent repairs.

A spokeswoman from Pinnacle, which serves more than 49,000 military family homes, said: ‘Pinnacle’s role is to take calls from families, and raise the repair job, which is then transferred to the DIO’s repairs contractor, VIVO Defence.

‘At present there is a high demand for urgent appointments, which the repairs providers are struggling to meet, and our call handlers are unable to appoint a significant minority within the target timeframe of 48 hours as appointments are just not available.

‘We are very sorry for the inconvenience this is undoubtedly causing to military families.’