Defence Estates, the Ministry of Defence’s property arm, is set to become a larger vehicle called Defence Infrastructure, with responsibility to provide facilities management and utilities to the department.

Speaking today at the Public Property Summit in London, Defence Estates deputy chief executive David Olney said the body was likely to be set up, following a Defence Reform Review being carried out by Lord Levene.

The review was announced at the Strategic Defence and Security Review last month.

Olney (pictured and interviewed on camera here) said a decision on the restructuring could happen before Christmas and would lead to a “more centralised approach to property.”

In a panel discussion at the event, which is co-hosted by Property Week and Public Property UK, Olney also said the MoD was likely to re-let its housing contracts and would outsource the housing services used to accomodate 20,000 troops and their families when they return from the Rhine before 2020.

He said that the HCA was most likely to retain and use existing assets to achieve this.

Defence Estates, which owns around 1% of the UK’s entire land mass, is also in talks with the Government Property Unit, run by John McCready, about how it can help deliver savings through the use of property vehicles.

The Property Unit wants to set up vehicles in Bristol and London by April 2012, and this would include the MoD’s large Abbey Wood offices on the outskirts of Bristol.

Olney said: “At Abbey Wood, we would be a tenant against McCready’s landlord approach. We’d have a duty to specify out needs as a tenant, just like any other occupier.”

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