Families fear being made homeless as MoD ends tenancy contracts

Families and elderly residents of a former garrison town have said they fear they will end up homeless as they face eviction from their homes after the Ministry of Defence ended their short-term contracts.

The Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) is understood to have written to the tenants of a number of properties which used to house service personnel in Bordon, Hampshire, telling them they must vacate the properties.

The DIO manages 115,000 non-residential buildings and 50,000 houses around the country.

The houses, which are close to Longmoor training camp, were leased by the MoD’s property arm on contracts with two months’ notice.

Now the residents have spoken of the stress at having to find somewhere to live all at the same time.

Single mother Mel Oakley fears she could end up homeless and living in bed and breakfast accommodation with her three children as she has been unable to find a home to rent.

The 42-year-old is undergoing hospital treatment for abdominal health issues, which is making it harder for her to search for properties.

She told the PA news agency: “It’s going to massively impact us. I’m having an operation so I’m potentially out of action for eight weeks, I’m not going to be able to lift, so that is one stress.

“I’m a single mum, I work, my youngest is at school, so hopefully trying to keep him in the area, but then potentially having to relocate him to a different school.

“Same with the boys who are hoping to return to college in September.

“Everything is on standby because we don’t know where we are going to be because there is nothing here in Bordon, there is nothing rent-wise.”

She added: “Rental is non-existent and those that are there are so difficult to even get. All I feel is we are going to be tucked into a B&B somewhere wherever for temporary accommodation because it’s going to get to that stage.”

Ms Oakley, who has lived at the property for two and a half years, added that the Pinnacle Group, which provides housing management for the DIO, had not provided any support to her family.

She said: “The manager has been so rude, with Pinnacle it is very much… ‘What do you want us to do? There is nothing we can do, you have got to find somewhere else’.”

Emma Koritsas, 45, who has lived in a rented house for seven years with her husband John, 46, and two children, aged 14 and five, said the situation had been worsened because so many houses had been given notice at the same time.

She said: “We can’t find anywhere else, it’s the fact that so many people are trying to find the same houses at the same time.

“At the moment we are looking at a shared ownership in Haslemere, 12 miles away, but that’s not ideal for the school run.

“My daughter is going into her GCSEs and we are doing our best to keep her in the same school but that could potentially lead to her having to commute an hour each day.

“The fact that there is nothing put in place for these houses, they really could have given us more time than the minimum.”

Coryne Hall, a royal author and historian, and her husband Colin are being evicted from their four-bedroom home.

Mr Hall, 78, said 10 houses in their section of the road had been given notice with properties elsewhere in the village also being affected.

He said: “We are all up in arms. What the hell are we are going to do? We have been ringing estate agents and there’s nothing available.

“How is it helping people, kicking us out with the housing situation. They don’t say what they are going to dispose the housing to.

“It’s scandalous.”

Mrs Hall added: “I think it’s callous. There are families up the road with young children who go to school round here – what are they going to do?”

A MoD spokeswoman said: “Civilian tenants who rent homes that are temporarily not required for service personnel sign-up to two months’ notice to vacate.

“Sub-lets are always offered on short-term basis only and cannot be considered as an alternate source of social housing.”

The spokeswoman said that it had issued Notice to Quit statements to eight properties while a total of 48 properties in Bordon are planned for disposal.

She added that the MoD and its contractors were not in a position to provide assistance in finding alternative accommodation.