About Us
The Ministry of Defence is one of the largest landowners in the United Kingdom owning some 927 square miles with over 4,000 sites including barracks, naval bases, depots, aircraft hangars, and accommodation for Service families. In total, this is equivalent to about one per cent of the UK landmass.
618 square miles of this is relatively undeveloped rural land, which includes 21 major armed forces training areas and 39 minor training areas.
Defence Estates (DE) manages the Defence Training Estate as a strategic asset and is responsible for the broad range of training support services including equipment support, air traffic and range control.
As well as military facilities, the defence estate features 179 Sites of Special Scientific Interest, 50 special protection areas, over 600 listed historic buildings, almost 1,000 scheduled monuments, and numerous archaeological sites. Many of these special features are accessible to the public but access restrictions may be in place at certain times.
The MOD fully reflects the Government’s policies on ‘Sustainable Development’, and ensures that its work and future plans take due account of social, economic and environmental sustainability. It also takes advice from experts on aspects of environmental, conservation and heritage matters both to ensure it has direct access to best practice and to evaluate the department’s performance.
