I'd just like to see what the opinions of you all is

[Saltire]

on this one.

it's causing a fair bit of animosity on our street. RAF (where we are anyway) still segregate officers and Other ranks, in regard to housing. so where I live there is 1 street of 20 x 4 bed officers, 1 street of 30 x 3 bed offciers, and 2 streets of 30 each x 3 bed other ranks.

2 LACs with 1 and 2 year service respectively have been moved into 2 seperate 4 bed officers quarters because "there are no ORs quarters availiable ( because out of our street of 30 houses, 20 of them are filled with army personnel who don't work here, they all work elsewhere where there is a glut of empty quarters). Each LAC is a single mum, with 1 child each

This is causing a lot of animosity, as on our street there is a flt Sgt (20 yrs servcie) 3 sgts with 25,22 and 18 yrs service, all of whom feel that they should have been offered the offciers mQs on - length of service and seniority- and the LAC moved into the ORs houses.
The second street of other ranks quarters has 6 Sgts, all with 18 or more years service as well

I'd really like to know what you all think - should a Flt Sgt or Sgt with 18 or more years service be offered the officers quarter instead?

Not if it means move mid-term which would cost a lot of money in terms of removals/DA in addition to that already being paid to the LACs. And how would you decide who to offer it to/who gets it if there are more than 2 people of the same rank? The 'single parent' comment is irrelevant, it has always been standard RAF practice to offer what is available to someone moving in, if this is above their normal entitlement because of a lack of availability so be it - this is the simplest,most cost effective and fairest way to allocate quarters.

I used the single parent comment because I knew someone would say "well how do you know their partner isn't an officer".

See I've lived in quarters for 18 years and have been allocated quarters which people have had to move out of because
"otherwise we'd have to put you into an officers house and that wouldn't be right for a sgt". (from DE).
DH has also had to go unaccompanied to places because the only quarters availiable have been officers and DE wouldn't put us in one.
There are empty houses on the streets, quite a few TBH, but for some reason they are moving lots of army in - none of whom want to live in the quarters at the base where they work - if that makes sense

Not got a problem with moving ORs into Officers houses if there are no other houses available, and much cheaper to move them in rather than move someone more senior mid tour so an LAC can get a smaller house.

Looking at it differently, they may have been given the houses rather than moved into Qtrs elsewhere because as single Mum's they may have ccompassionate reasons or childcare issues, which a longer commute into work would exacerbate.

Doesn't everywhere segregate officer s and OR housing? I hink it's entirely reasonable to move OR into officers quarters if that's all there is available. It costs a lot of money to move people mid tour because there is a bigger house that they could have. And has a knock on effect. And if the Sgts are housed according to their entitlement then it's really none of their business in my opinion :) That way madness lies

I think part of the problem is that there is a housing issue here because back in 2010, 2 couples were moved out of their MQs because "they worked on a base less than 10 miles away so can live there", "new policy is that you must be quartered where you work"

i saw the letter.

Then they start to fill up empty MQs with army personnel who work on bases 10-20 miles away so therefore, no quarters are availiable to people posted in. one couple are coming from cyprus and are having to live at the base 30 miles away and commute, he's a Cpl (working with DH) and he was told that he was a cpl and so cannot move into an Officers quarter as they are for officers only,a dn would ahve to take one at x base isntead
It's just madness really

People are all over the place , they have certain houses available. ATM you are lucky if you are even allocated quarted where you are based, they are throwing people everywhere.

I think it's a case of suck it up tbh. It makes sense moving one lot of people, not two.

AFAIK any quarters offered by DE over 10 miles form the duty station have to be agreed by the local brigade commander. If this chap really has been offered a quarter 30 miles away he needs to take it up with his unit. The only housing policies that apply are those in the relevant JSP. It does sound like too many people in your road are getting involved in other peoples housing issues and drawing their own conclusions tbh

Everywhere we lived segregated by rank. I've never known of an OR to have been given an officer's quarter but would have no problem with the idea if there were no OR's houses available. I fail to see the need to move people mid-tour just so that someone "lower" doesn't end up in a quarter higher than their entitlement. As for the notion of being on the base where you work - all great in theory, doesn't always work in practice.

I agree with LeonardNimoy - it sounds as though people are getting all het up over nothing and should stop the curtain-twitching!

DE suck. They don't make decisions that make sense. And yes I can see why some people getting officers quarters would irritate some long-serving people. It wouldn't make sense to move them mid-tour though, unless they were willing to foot the bill.

Personally if I were running things I would abolish "segregating" the housing, as you put it. Nowhere else in society is the decision made for you that "as you are only a ..............insert job here.................. you can't live here" people make their own decisions based on what they can afford. I would offer a range of housing to those moving to the base then they could choose what they were prepared to pay. Making it competitive could force them to do something about the standard of some of the houses too as no-one would choose to live there!

Housing is very sparse in all areas, for most regions the policy of Officers and ORs patch has been abolished, SSFA is too expensive for the MoD to continue with and has also been abused by too many.

I know. I think they're thinking about selling off quite a few quarters. If you do that survey (racks brains to think of how to refer to it) for the RAF Families Association (or equivalent) it shows you what they're thinking of.

I'm quite game for them to help you onto the housing ladder if they're going to reduce the quarters available. It will be more useful in the long-term and we're struggling to raise our deposit for our first house. But if they do that, they need to extend the length of time your tour is meant to be.

whizzyrocket are you sure no where else in society people aren't forced into segregation. I mean in a way we all our if your DH earns 75K a year are you really going to choose to live next to someone who earns 12K a year? I don't think so, I know it is not forcing but it is what happens. It is the same argument for why do officers get bigger houses, well in the real world they earn more and would choose to live in a bigger house would they not? I know that as we live in a quarter we now live in a smaller house than we would if we lived in our own house, but that is our decision to move with DH and hence even living in the 2nd largest house on camp it is still smaller than our own house in a lovely village location that we now rent out.

As for making us live in our own houses, we are lucky to be somewhere 24 months and if we owned our own house and moved each time we would be massively out of pocket by now on our 12th house

I live on a mixed patch of what technically should be officers quarters. But we have SNCO, WOs, Capts, FLt Lt, Majs and Sqn Ldrs. I don't give a shiney shite tbh....

strumpy think it depends on where you live, we lived on a mixed patch 3 postings ago and it was great, community atmosphere every one having BBQs together. I am not one to make friends based on what rank my DH is we are all mothers and women in our own rights.

BUT where we live now is not a mixed patch but our house is sat on its own and then there is a small path before the Cpl's patch and it is awful. We are very prominent as the officers house (not that we aren't up 2 grades due to lack of housing) and the Cpl's are just not nice to us or our children. I have had comments about the size of my house/garden, they party on a school night till 3am and if we complain asking them to turn their music down so our DCs can sleep they swear at us, even complained about me not cutting my grass (DH was away and I had spent the week back and forth to A&E with DS who split his head open then got serious concussion) so when I did go out and cut my grass then got told that I needed to wear more clothes in my garden (I wore a vest top as it was hot) . To clarify we have a 10ft wall around our garden so they must have been straining out of their upstairs windows to see me, never knew I was so attractive

Before I get flamed I know that this is unusual and their are some nice people on the patch, they do also annoy the soldiers and they complain too but I can't help thinking that putting a young Cpl with no kids in an area full of kids is asking for trouble and is that why we are segregated to begin with, people of similar ranks are at similar stages in their life (not always but mostly) and so have children of similar ages and it makes for a nice community feeling.

We live on segregated patch. I thought everyone did. When we first got married I asked DH why that was, his reply was 'it's not that we don't want to live next door to them, it because they don't want to live next door to us!' he was joking but in the essence is true I think. One of his soldiers jokingly said to me that he would not feel happy sitting in his DC's paddling pool with only his shorts on, drinking a nice cold beer in the summer if he knew his boss might be watching him over the fence

I don't think anyone ever wants to live next door to their boss tbh. You want to be able to relax in your own home don't you?