Council office to be turned into flats for homeless
An office building in Tavistock owned by West Devon Borough Council is to be converted into temporary accommodation for homeless and vulnerable people. The council’s planning committee gave approval for the conversion at The Kiosk in Plymouth Road next to the bus station which will create two one-bed flats and one two-bed flat.
Councillors heard that there was a demand for this type of affordable accommodation because of the current lack of private rented homes. The time taken to source long-term accommodation had increased and applicants were staying in temporary accommodation like bed and breakfast establishments for longer periods of time, which in turn was costing the council more as it had to pay the difference.
The council’s affordable housing team backed the application and said: “There has been an increased use of temporary accommodation in the form of bed and breakfast type since the closure of the hostel accommodation at Springhill in Tavistock[1].
“The use of temporary accommodation for single persons, in particular, is on the increase at a huge cost to the public purse and the health and wellbeing of people that we are currently placing out of the area where they access their support.
“B&B is a challenging setting to be placed in and should only be used where there is no other accommodation option available. The provision of self-contained units of accommodation creates better use of public funds and is a more suitable setting for homeless households.”
The building, a three-storey semi-detached Victorian property, houses six offices but has only ever reached 80 per cent occupancy with only one unit currently occupied. Councillors agreed that the community benefits of the proposal outweighed the loss of employment space.
Cllr Ursula Mann (Ind, Tavistock North) and Cllr Caroline Mott (Con, Bridestowe) asked for good soundproofing between the flats, and also externally as the house was next to a bus station with buses coming and going until 10pm.
Cllr Mann said: “I work nearby in the surgery and sometimes the noise from the buses overtakes the conversation in the surgery and that is further away from the bus station than this building.
“You are going to have that backing up noise in what could be homes for families or young people just coming out of care. Our temporary accommodation sometimes lasts six months and for that long with that noise it’s not very pleasant.”
Cllr Mott said the sound insulation between the flats needed to be adequate as she had come across that problem before. Councillors were told that the length of stay in temporary accommodation had been extended to 108 days because of the housing crisis.
Tom Morris from the council’s assets team said the building was of a “heritage nature” and inside a World Heritage Site and conservation area so the council was looking at installing secondary glazing on the inside. Thick external walls would also mitigate some of the noise. He added that there would be an acoustic noise survey carried out.
The application, which includes replacing the asphalt parking area to the front of the building with an area of decking and soft landscaping, was approved unanimously.