The Royal Marines landed in Southfields last week with the opening of its new reserve unit in Merton Road.

The Royal Marine Reserves City of London (RMR), has moved to the TA centre in Merton Road after being based at its old Jamaica Road premises in Bermondsey for 36 years.

The move has meant that the unit, of up to 120 reservists, now has a bigger premises to work and train in, along with better facilities and accommodation.

Captain Alex Pounds of the RMR said: “The move will enable us to do more training on site and we will be able to improve what we can do from that.

“Everyone is impressed with the facilities and we all feel it will be of great benefit to our overall ability to train as part of the Royal Marines Reserves.”

Since the start of the war in Afghanistan, men from the unit have served with the Marines on numerous tours of duty, with Capt Pounds having been out in the war zone twice.

The decision to move was said to be a pre-emptive one, made before the Strategic Defence Review which cut the defence budget by 7.5 per cent and was part of the MoD’s policy of getting better value for money.

Capt Pounds revealed that the make-up of the RMR City of London is not what you might expect, with marines coming from all different walks of life to be part of the unit.

He said: “Many of our Marines come from many different backgrounds, from city bankers to plummers to insurance brokers, so it shows that it is not always your typical man that wants to be part of the reserves.

“With some of the guys being in these varied types of civilian jobs, they can actually offer different skills and different perspectives to the situations that they face on the ground other than purely a soldiers point of view.”

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