Introduction

The Ministry of Defence is one of the largest landowners in the country, with an estate equal to about 1% of the UK land mass. Defence Estates – an MOD organisation - manages the estate. The estate, spread over 4,000 sites, is critical to the effectiveness of the Armed Forces. It is held solely to support the delivery of defence capability by providing training areas, accommodation and a base from which operations can be instigated.

The total area (freehold and leasehold) of the defence estate remains around 240 thousand hectares and is valued at about £20 billion. The Department has additional rights and grants of over 133 thousand hectares. The annual cost of new construction, maintenance and property management is over £2 billion.

For more information, visit the Defence Estates website at: http://www.defence-estates.mod.uk/

Table 6.1 shows the area of land occupied by each Service and whether owned, leased or with legal rights. Of the 239 thousand hectares of land and foreshore owned by the MOD the Army occupies the largest area (157 thousand hectares), with access to a further 88 thousand hectares from various rights and grants.

Table 6.2 shows the area of MOD holdings by country. England accounts for the largest portion of MOD land holdings, where the estate comprises 188 thousand hectares with access to a further 34 thousand hectares in rights and grants. The MOD owns 221 thousand hectares of land and 18 thousand hectares of foreshore within the UK. (Foreshore is the land between low and high tide marks.)

Table 6.3 shows the area of MOD holdings by type of use, such as airfields, training areas and barracks. Training areas occupy the largest area at 291 thousand hectares, including rights over 128 thousand hectares.

Larger areas of the Defence Estate

Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire

Army use of Salisbury Plain dates back to 1897. The total area of the current estate is just over 38 thousand hectares and represents about one ninth of the area of Wiltshire.

While much of the land is let to farmers or is grazed under license, around 12,150 hectares is used for live firing and as impact areas. Public access is permanently restricted in certain areas for safety reasons.

Catterick and Feldom Training Area, Yorkshire

A military training centre at Catterick was created before the First World War. The 7,870 hectares of land which forms the current training area were acquired between 1921 and 1985. Much of this land is used for livestock grazing, while the better in-bye land is farmed more intensively for hay, silage and arable crops.

Otterburn Training Area, Northumberland

The War Office bought 7,690 hectares of land in 1911, with the artillery ranges being extended during the Second World War. The training area now comprises of some 22,900 hectares of land, with the largest single impact area range in the UK. The range is partitioned into three separate danger areas and has three Outside Gun Areas. Some 45,000 soldiers use the area each year. The Cheviot Dry Training Area is to the north of these areas. Otterburn Training Area also includes 2 ranges at Ponteland near Newcastle and at Whitburn on the coast between Newcastle and Sunderland. From 2007, Otterburn has also had responsibility for Ballykinler and Magilligan training areas in Northern Ireland.

Dartmoor Training Area, Devon

Military training has taken place on Dartmoor for many centuries, and was used intensively for tactical exercises with live ammunition during the Second World War. Today the MOD uses (by freehold, lease or license) approximately 12,760 hectares of the National Park's 94,400 hectares. The Dartmoor Training Area is used for light forces' exercises, mostly for Royal Marines and other units based in the southwest. There are three Range Danger Areas: Okehampton, Merrivale and Willsworthy, which when this land is not in use for live firing, provide for dry training with blank ammunition. There are smaller training areas at Cramber and Ringmoor.

RAF Spadeadam, Cumbria

Located to the south of the Scottish Borders, the site's military use dates back to 1957 when the Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile Test Centre was built. RAF Spadeadam is now home to the Electronic Warfare (EW) Tactics Range, and provides realistic EW training for aircrew (primarily RAF, but also other NATO Air Forces) and is one of only two such facilities in Europe.

RAF Spadeadam is the largest RAF Station in the UK comprising 3,642 hectares. The majority of this land is sub-let for timber production to the Forestry Commission.

Service Family Accommodation - Tables 6.4 & 6.5

Defence Estates is responsible for the management and allocation of Service Family Accommodation. The majority of MOD's housing stock in England and Wales was sold to a private company, Annington Homes Limited (AHL) in 1996, with properties required for defence use being leased back.

Table 6.4 shows the numbers of Service Family Accommodation properties in the UK and the numbers and proportion vacant. There are around 50,000 properties in the UK, of which around 8,400 are currently vacant. There are around 41,300 occupants.

Table 6.5 shows the surveyed condition of Service Family Accommodation properties within Great Britain. Over 90% of properties are assessed as being in the top two standards (of four) for condition.

Further estate-related material, covering Sustainable Development, can be found in Chapter 7 of this document.