"Disposal date" for barracks originally set for this year; MoD changed this to 2022

Plans to sell an army barracks to make way for commercial development have been put back at least two years, according to the government.

Parsons Barracks, part of MoD Donnington, was earmarked for disposal in a 2016 reorganisation plan. That document gave the site, off Hortonwood 30, an “estimated disposal date” of 2020.

But a parliamentary update said, following an assessment, this had been changed to 2022. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said they would continue to work with Telford and Wrekin Council and others to plan for the long-term future of the site.

Home to the 174 Provost Company of the Royal Military Police and the Special Investigation Branch, Parson Barracks was one of 51 sites named for disposal in an MoD paper titled “A Better Defence Estate”. Units based there were “most likely” to move to Beacon Barracks, in Stafford, it said.

An MoD spokesman said the Parsons Barracks date was changed last year from 2020 to 2022.

He added: “We are considering the potential of delaying the disposal date as part of wider defence estate scheduling.

“We remain committed to working with the local authority, and local stakeholders, to masterplan for long-term future use of the site post-military vacation as part of this assessment.”

Venning Barracks, on Donnington Drive, is another part of the Donnington base that was named for disposal in the 2016 paper. The estimated date for that was also 2020, with some elements likely to relocated to Stafford and others to Bulford, near Salisbury.

The subsequent parliamentary update said Venning Barracks “will begin a phased land disposal in 2020 and units will remain in place to 2022”.

An Air Force training centre in Bristol was also due to close by 2020 and move its units to RAF Shawbury, north of Shrewsbury.

This move was not mentioned in the update to parliament, but the MoD spokesman said a short extension to the Bristol lease had been negotiated.

In the foreword to A Better Defence Estate, then Defence Secretary Michael Fallon and Chief of the Defence Staff Sir Stuart Peach pointed out that the MoD estate covered more than 1,000,000 acres, approximately 1.8 per cent of the UK landmass.

“While in many areas we use our estate efficiently, overall it is too big, too expensive, with too many sites in the wrong locations,” they wrote.

“The armed forces are 30 per cent smaller than at the end of the last century, but the estate has only reduced by nine per cent.

“That is why the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review committed to invest in a better-built estate that will reduce in size by 30 per cent by 2040.”