All adult infantry training is now taking place at Catterick in Yorkshire, rather than at five regional centres, making it extremely difficulty for recruits to find places.

The recruiting officer had to say to these fellows that he couldn't offer them a place in training until at least September

MP Patrick Mercer

An Army spokesman confirmed to the BBC that there are neither enough beds nor instructors at Catterick and the base was full.

He said the earliest new recruits would be put through the system would be July.

Some would-be soldiers are simply not willing to wait that long, according to local MP Patrick Mercer.

Delayed

Mr Mercer spoke to four young men who had wanted to join the Sherwood Foresters regiment in Nottinghamshire, but were told they could not start their training straight away.

Two of them had now decided on an alternative career, he said.

"The regiment is furious about it," Mr Mercer told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Phasing out the old system in transition to the new is inevitably resulting in a slight temporary bottleneck

Colonel John Ibbotson, Army Training and Recruiting Agency

"When these lads came forward, all of whom were looking for good employment immediately, the recruiting officer had to say to these fellows that he couldn't offer them a place in training until at least September.

"Two of them were relatively content with that but the other two, as far as I know when I last spoke to them, had decided they were going to seek employment elsewhere."

Demand

The Army said the problem was a "transitional" one and that it was urgently working to create more places.

"Phasing out the old system in transition to the new is inevitably resulting in a slight temporary bottleneck," said Colonel John Ibbotson, head of operations at the Army Training and Recruiting Agency.

"However, once we're over this hump, the intakes into the school of infantry are about once every two weeks.

All recruits are now being trained at Catterick

"The contingency plans that we've put in place which will start to eat into the delays over the next few weeks should assure that we are back on track within the next two or three months."

But the BBC has learned that commanding officers of infantry regiments met with the Director of Infantry Brigadier Alistair Duncan 10 days ago to demand something is done.

A recruiting crisis forced the Army to employ a private recruiting company last year.

The overall frontline strength of 108,000 is 8,000 short.