DEFENCE chiefs have pledged to urgently investigate run-down accommodation at an Oxfordshire RAF base.

Pictures of shabby cabins with peeling paint and leaking sewage pipes at RAF Brize Norton were published in The Sun today.

The photographs show damp walls, windows covered by plastic sheets and broken swings in a playground strewn with litter.

The newspaper says the site is rat-infested and has a faulty electricity supply.

It was reportedly where airman Gary Thompson, the 51-year-old killed on Sunday, trained before he left for Afghanistan.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said the cabins had not been used for eight weeks.

She added: "The Chief of the Air Staff and the Defence Secretary are very concerned and have asked for this to be investigated urgently. "We will make sure that whatever may have happened in the past no service personnel have to stay in this accommodation in such a state in the future."

RAF Brize Norton is the largest station in the air force, employing about 3,900 personnel and more than 600 civilians.

In September last year, the defence select committee produced a critical report on accommodation for the armed forces.

The committee said soldiers at Pirbright base in Surrey were forced to sleep eight to a room and were claiming conditions in the UK were worse than in Afghanistan.