When a 16 year old applies he/she gets sent to Harrogate.My question is whether he/she will be provided housing and food

Good Afternoon Kayaan and thankyou for your question.

The Army Foundation College Harrogate is, as you quite rightly mentioned, the pathway for all of our junior soldiers to join the British Army.

Whilst there, you will be provided with accommodation and food for the duration of your stay. This will be in the form of a room in your section (team of 8-12), which includes your own private space and all the usual amenities too.

Your feeding will be provided by our team of military and civilian chefs in the cookhouse on camp. This is some amazing food with culinary tastes that come from all over the world. It comes at only a small price as the army will pay some of the costs for you.

Whilst at Harrogate, your food will come straight out of your monthly pay, so you wont even notice that you're paying for it. However after completing your basic training and moving to your next phase of training, you will move to "Pay as you dine" establishments. Which is essentially similar to how shops work, in that you take what you would like to the counter and then pay for it at the till.

As well as this, most military camps have a small shop on site, this is usually well stocked with a variety of snacks, drinks and other useful items like toiletries and so on.

The accommodation that you will live in will house yourself and the rest of your section, as mentioned before, with your bed and storage areas having private space too. This will also include secure storage spaces for both your civilian and military equipment, and washing/bathroom facilities too.

Overall the Army will always provide its personnel with somewhere to live on camp as well as providing a source of feeding for your 3 core meals per day. Its vital that we adhere to this for exact situations such as the one you have mentioned where some of our soldiers might come from different parts of the world where it makes things more difficult for them to find somewhere to stay.

I hope this answers your question, and best of luck for the future!