Gibraltar Government has unveiled a dramatic portfolio of residential and other property that passes to it following an agreement with the MOD.

Last Saturday, the Chief Minister Peter Caruana and the Secretary of State for Defence Liam Fox signed the third Lands Agreement since 2004 between the Gibraltar Government and the Ministry of Defence.

Detailing the plans Chief Minister Peter Caruana said that this latest lands

agreement "benefits everyone and provides excellent opportunities to Gibraltar for the present and future".

 
He also emphasised that the MOD's continuing significant presence in Gibraltar is both politically and economically important.

Under this new Lands Agreement the MOD will transfer significantly more assets to GOG than GOG will reprovide for the MOD, No 6 said in a statement issued with a collection of photographs of the released buildings.

Government says that the underlying theme of this agreement is that MOD will be located within four sites within Gibraltar, namely, the Naval Base, the Airfield, Devil's Tower Camp and Four Corners and, with the exception of a handful of remote and specialist operational facilities, will vacate and transfer to Gibraltar Government all other sites and properties.

HOUSING

MOD will transfer 361 houses to GOG, and in return GOG will build 90 houses for MOD within Four Corners Estate. MOD will therefore transfer to Government all housing at Europa Point, the Trafalgar Heights Block in Europa Road, Europa Pass Battery, Buena Vista, Old Naval Hospital Road, Chilton Court and elsewhere.

Current Gibraltar Regiment families and other persons who presently live in Chilton Court and who would otherwise be eligible to be on the Government housing list will be allowed to remain as Government tenants of their Chilton Court flats even after they leave the Royal Gibraltar Regiment.

They will also be eligible to buy their flat under the Government's 'right to buy' scheme.

All vacant properties will be offered for sale to the public by tender, offering the opportunity for hundreds of local families to buy a home in some of the most attractive residential areas of Gibraltar. RGR personnel living in properties outside Chilton Court will also be eligible to purchase under the Government's 'right to buy' scheme.

PROPERTIES

Under the arrangement MOD will also transfer the following other non-residential proper-ties to GOG:

• Its remaining half of the

Detached Mole

• The Motor Transport and

Trailer Park complex near

the Naval Base

• The Europa Point Sports

Field

• A Plot of land at Europa Flats

• St Christopher's School

buildings and associated land

• Europa Point Community

Centre and Squash Court

Site

• Rosia Swimming Pool and

associated land

• Other industrial buildings

near the Naval base

• Gorham's Cave and

surrounding cliffs

• Chilton Court Community

Centre

• A 3 metre wide strip of

land at Four Corners along

the whole length of the land

frontier

• The Rooke Complex

SELF FUNDING

The Government states that it will use the cash proceeds of the house sales to build 90 houses for the MOD and to reprovide some of the other

MOD facilities currently located within the above listed sites to Four Corners Camp, Devil's Tower Camp, the Naval Base or the RAF Station on the South Dispersal of the airfield.

Mr Caruana said that, importantly and firstly, the arrangement makes the MOD's Gibraltar operations more financially efficient and thus its continuing significant presence here more sustainable and assured in these times of stringent budget problems and heavy cutbacks elsewhere in the MOD.

"The MOD's continuing significant presence in Gibraltar is both politically and economically important. MOD jobs already enjoy the protection of the 2007 Global Agreement and that is not affected."

"Secondly", said Mr caruana, "it will provide home ownership opportunities for hundreds of families in property types that are not commonly available in Gibraltar."

"Thirdly, it provides the Government which much land and facilities that it can put to local public, economic, leisure and social use.

And fourthly, it allows Government to rezone the use of or regenerate significant

areas of Gibraltar for the future. As with other lands ageements since 2004, all properties now built by GOG to reprovide MOD housing or other facilities would revert to

GOG free of charge when they become surplus to MOD needs in the future."

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