LYMPSTONE was visited by royalty today when HRH Princess Anne's husband Vice Admiral Tim Lawrence spent time opening new military accommodation at the Royal Marine Commando training camp.

LYMPSTONE was visited by royalty on Monday when HRH Princess Anne's husband Vice Admiral Tim Lawrence spent time opening new military accommodation at the Royal Marine Commando training camp.

The Princess Royal's husband, who is the Chief Executive of Defence Estates, celebrated with the troops the opening of the 10,000th bed space - called project SLAM - as part of a nationwide scheme to improve accommodation for single military personnel.

The latest accommodation is one of 230 en-suite rooms for Lympstone's Royal Marine permanent staff.

During his visit, Vice Admiral Laurence met some of the occupants of the new accommodation, and inspected the four-and six-man dormitories which had previously been 'home' to the Marines.

Vice Admiral Laurence said: "Project SLAM is one of a number of initiatives that are making a real difference to the living standards of our service personnel throughout the country. We have said frequently that our service personnel do exceptional jobs, and therefore deserve a decent standard of modern living accommodation.

"The new SLAM blocks at Lympstone provide yet more evidence that we are delivering on that understanding."

The accommodation improvement is a £1.1billion nationwide scheme which began in 2002.

The new accommodation was welcomed by the troops based at Lympstone.

Marine Luke Street, 25, who joined the Royal Marines two years ago, said: "We watched the build closely and couldn't wait for the blocks to be completed. When we finally got to move in, I couldn't believe how good the rooms and facilities were - it is just what we need."

His colleague, Corporal Scott Anger, 32, said: "It is great having a bit of privacy and being able to relax in the comfort of your room after a hard day. We now have our own bathrooms as well as communal washing machines and dryers - this has had a major impact on our standard of living.

"But we are still basically living together as team, with a shared kitchen area and living room, so there is no danger of becoming a hermit.