Care leaver container housing plans criticised

A council has been told its plans to repurpose a shipping container to house vulnerable young people would not bring it to "the standards for comfortable living".

Herefordshire Council applied to itself in January for planning permission to convert two properties, which it owns, in Hereford's Blackfriars Street into temporary accommodation for young people coming out of the care system.

Each was to become four self-contained one-bedroom flats, one being specifically for female care leavers.

But proposals to demolish a garage on the same street and replace it with an adapted shipping container to provide further housing have been criticised by another authority.

Hereford City Council said such containers "have been proven to be poorly suited to human habitation, despite the assumptions in the application".

They added: "Unless measures were taken to ensure the container is not too hot or too cold during seasonal changes, it would likely not meet the standards for comfortable living."

Scott and Laura Wroe, who own a neighbouring hearing clinic, said, if approved, the housing would "have a major effect on us, our patients and our staff".

Herefordshire Council is due to make a decision on the plans on 9 April.

Last year, the council dropped plans to convert former public toilets into temporary homeless shelters.

It had recently faced criticism for the standard of its winter homeless accommodation in the city, which it said it would take on board in order to make improvements.

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, which covers councils and other public service organisations.

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