'High standard' apartments for homeless people planned for disused play area and car park site

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

New flats for homeless people could be built across three 'underutilised' sites - including a disused play area and an ‘informal’ free car park - in Rochdale. The proposal would see three apartment blocks constructed on land off Whitworth Road and Grasmere Street - also home to four ‘dilapidated’ council-owned garages.

Designed to a ‘high standard that will significantly enhance the character of the area’, it includes a pair of two-storey blocks - housing eight and four flats respectively - as well as a bungalow providing two homes. The plans have been submitted by Cornerstone Place, a social enterprise which aims to end street homelessness in the UK by 2030 by working in partnership with homelessness support charities.

The scheme has been developed in conjunction with a Rochdale-based homelessness charity, Stepping Stone Projects, which intends to operate the facility once it is complete. A document submitted with the planning applications notes that homelessness in Rochdale is ‘very high’ and increasing in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

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And it stresses the importance of widening housing choice to meet the needs of residents - especially the homeless.It continues: “Given the nature of the accommodation and integrated management supervision for future residents, the proposal would contribute to addressing local homelessness, which according to numerous independent data sources, exceeds the national average.

The document goes on to note that the type of accommodation being proposed would address ‘key social issues facing a particularly vulnerable group’. And it explains how the scheme aims to ‘maximise