https://insidedio.blog.gov.uk/2021/05/24/interested-in-working-for-the-estates-team/

Interested in working for the Estates Team?

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Accommodation, Estates, Facilities Management

The Estates Team manage, safeguard and dispose of Defence land and buildings for our military customers. [Crown Copyright/MOD2015]
The Estates team is the home of our in-house real estate experts within DIO. We advise, acquire, manage, safeguard and dispose of the Defence land and buildings for our military customers. To do so we work closely with other DIO teams including our Hard and Soft Facilities Management Teams in Regional Delivery, Project Managers in Major Projects and Programmes and the Accommodation teams.

I manage a team of chartered surveyors, town planners, registered valuers and technical staff who use their unique customer knowledge and insight of the Defence estate to provide in-depth advice, benefitting the military on MOD sites in the UK and overseas. The expertise we provide ranges from rural and commercial surveying, safeguarding specific assets and operational capabilities, byelaw management, acquisitions and disposals through to managing accommodation programmes, commercialisation initiatives, and valuation programmes.

Looking at the whole iceberg

The nature of the work that the Estates team undertakes can be likened to an iceberg – the portion which is visible above water is only a small piece of a much larger whole. Examples of the more visible activities include land sales where the wider community can see sale boards and information, the letting of MOD land and farms so as to reduce management costs and provide a realistic military training environment and the letting of buildings in garrison areas to provide services such as hairdressers, tailoring and other shops and even pubs.

One hidden example of the team’s work is sourcing, securing and managing over 1000 rental properties in various overseas locations to meet overseas military accommodation needs. In the UK the lesser known areas of our work include dealing with military training and manoeuvres damage claims. We manage the leases for some historic areas such as the Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust Historic Dockyard, which has the National Museum of the Royal Navy, HMS Warrior, and the Mary Rose Trust as sub tenants.

An aerial image of the Portsmouth Dockyard. There is a range of buildings around the sea as well as ships.
The Estates Team manage the leases for some historic areas such as the Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust Historic Dockyard. [Crown Copyright/MOD2015]
The Estates team has a close working relationship with our Armed Forces customers and the military backdrop can make for some interesting days. Aside from the wide variety of tasks that the job entails we provide real estate support to military operations and to state occasions in the UK. Recently this has included supporting the military in their response to the Covid-19 pandemic and their role in the funeral of HRH the Duke of Edinburgh, with the G7 meeting in Cornwall and Trooping the Colour at Windsor Castle to come in the very near future. We are also sometimes called upon to support wider government, such as the Home Office in the provision of asylum seeker accommodation on military sites. This is not something that is found in many other jobs, and our work can be very fast paced.

As you can see the DIO Estates team provides a wide range of advice and support to our military customers and colleagues across DIO and I’ve hardly scratched the surface here!

Join us

If this has whetted your appetite, we currently have vacancies for suitably qualified property professionals - including: Senior Development Surveyor, Senior Valuer, Senior Surveyor, Senior Estate Surveyor and more to come! You can also look at future opportunities on  Civil Service Jobs.

An infographic explaining what the DIO Estates team does in Navy blue, light greay and orange. At the top it has four boxes covering acquistion and disposals with an up and down arrow, accomodation optimisation team with a house icon, land management services with a location icon and safeguading icon with a tick. Under it is a grey map of the UK with little dark blue dots that covers the areas we cover. To the left of the infographic is bullets of the teams role.
An overview of what DIO's Estates Team does. [Crown Copyright/MOD2020]

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16 comments

  1. Comment by ANTHONY REEVES posted on

    We will soon be moving into a property in Imber Road Warminster Wiltshire BA12 0BN and there are several tall trees growing on the narrow adjoining strip of waste land between our property and the military vehicle park in Warminster (we can provide a marked up plan if required).

    These trees need urgent attention for the following reasons: -

    • Large branches currently overhang our property (including a PVC-roofed car port) and could cause injury or damage if they fall

    • Large branches also overhang the footpath leading up to Pepper Place and, again, these could cause injury if they fall

    • The trees and branches are taking a lot of light from our property

    The first stage in dealing with this issue is to establish who is responsible for these trees (we believe that it is DIO) – there is a gate in the chain-link fence which provides access to the strip of land and the gate is padlocked so clearly someone must own this land.

    Please could you advise us who owns this land so that we can resolve this issue?

    Your urgent attention would be very much appreciated as we assume that any tree work will need to be done before the bird’s nesting season starts.

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    • Replies to ANTHONY REEVES>

      Comment by DIO Communications Team posted on

      Hi Anthony, thanks for your message. I can see your email address so will ask our forestry team to check if it's our land and let you know.

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  2. Comment by ANTHONY REEVES posted on

    Thank you - please can you advise how soon they will be able to do this?

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    • Replies to ANTHONY REEVES>

      Comment by DIO Communications Team posted on

      It might take a while, as we'll have to establish whether it's our land, then the foresty/estate team will have to have a look and see whether anything needs to be done, and if so, book the work in.

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  3. Comment by Chloe posted on

    Hi, we are having an issue of noise nuisance caused by one of your MOD properties. It sounds like the boiler is not working properly as it is causing significant noise and vibration on the party wall. Please can you assist us in making sure that the relevant team is informed and actions can be taken? Many thanks, Chloe

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    • Replies to Chloe>

      Comment by DIO Communications Team posted on

      Hi Chloe, we'd suggest speaking to the relevant neighbours and seeing if there's a problem with their boiler, and if so, whether they have reported it.

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      • Replies to DIO Communications Team>

        Comment by Chloe posted on

        Hi, we have tried to contact the tenant but they're only there on rare occasion (apparently it's a house used for people working at the MOD who need accommodation) and the letter we've put through the door has been ignored. Is there an email address for the properties team?

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  4. Comment by Gerald Grant Chandler posted on

    Tyneham

    A few years ago in April 2015, Lt Col Ken Davies together with Linda Pryce, very kindly arranged for my wife and I to visit the Manor House at Tyneham to celebrate our 25th Wedding Anniversary. Col. Ken has since retired I believe, as his MOD email address no longer works.

    In all the years we’ve been going the village has become a place where we go to escape the 21st century and it’s commercial undertones.

    We always understood that as part of the 1978 Lulworth Ranges Byelaws it was prohibited for any commercial trading to be carried out on the site.

    Today, my wife and I visited and again, as we had noticed on at least two previous occasions dating back to 2019, there was a Forgotten SaltPig catering van in the car park.

    We were simply wondering have the bye-laws been amended by MoD to allow trading on site? And if they have how via open competition was the chosen vendor selected.

    KR,

    Gerry and Sally Chandler, Stoney Stratton, Somerset, Sat 8 Apr 2023

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    • Replies to Gerald Grant Chandler>

      Comment by DIO Communications Team posted on

      Good afternoon and many thanks for your message,

      We have checked with the local Training Safety team and colleagues in our Estates team, and can confirm that the Forgotten Salt Pig concession does have a licence to operate in Tyneham, and is not in breach of local bye-laws.

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  5. Comment by Emma posted on

    I have been trying to contact someone who deals with a particular plot of Land in North Yorkshire since 2019. It is DIO land and no one seems to respond back to me. Is there any way you can pass my details across to someone to discuss this matter?

    I find it quite appalling that nobody has the decency to respond.

    KR

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    • Replies to Emma>

      Comment by DIO Communications Team posted on

      Hi Emma,

      I'm not sure how you've been trying to get in touch but sorry you haven't heard back! I can see your email address at our end from your comment so I will email you for more information to work out who you will need to speak to.

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  6. Comment by Rachael Jones posted on

    South Wonston Parish Council are keen to speak to your Hampshire Principal Estate Surveyor or your Estates Department about a small piece of land behind our car park that we would like to lease/ purchase to develop into a sustainable orchard and allotments.

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  7. Comment by Julia Bracewell posted on

    Hi, I live beside a wood that is owned by the MOD and in the storm at the weekend, a number of trees fell onto my property and another looks as if it is about to go. Would you please get in touch to let me know who to contact about this. I am in West Lothian in Scotland and the wood is in Kirknewton.

    Many thanks

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    • Replies to Julia Bracewell>

      Comment by DIO Communications Team posted on

      Hi Julia, Sorry that we missed your comment. You may have already dealt with this, but we will send you an email directly to check.

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