Homeless families provision (Plymouth City Council)

Housing Advisers Programme case study

2022/23 cohort 

Plymouth City Council have used Housing Advisers Programme funding to progress plans to deliver a new flagship accommodation facility for homeless families. The city’s current facility at Raglan Court has long been considered unfit for purpose.  

Funding was used to procure external advisers to: 

•  Identify and review potential sites in Plymouth suitable for homelessness provision - including two identified PCC owned sites. 
• Provide valuations for potential sites. 
• Provide an options appraisal that presents design proposals for selected sites - including options for adaptation, as well as for demolish and rebuild. 
• Have the proposed design options fully costed by a quantity surveyor/cost consultant. 
• Submit final findings and recommendations in the form of a detailed report that can be widely shared to disseminate best practice. 

  As a result, one site has been identified as the preferred option to deliver accommodation for homeless families. 

The council are now commissioning further works to assess whether adding an additional six to ten flats would be considered safe by a structural engineer. Confirmation of this will position PCC to proceed with a planning application for the new site. 

Local Authorities have a statutory duty to provide accommodation for homeless families. At present, the Council partly meets this duty by accommodating homeless families in its supported housing facility at Raglan Court. Raglan Court is a post-war building that predates many of the modern requirements relating to thermal insulation and accessibility and it does not meet modern Building Regulations. The building is thermally inefficient and there are no lifts for wheelchair users and parents with push chairs or shopping. The building is in poor condition and requires major refurbishment and adaption. 

Raglan Court is arranged as 12, three bedroom apartments and one, one bedroom apartment. This mix offers little to support smaller families and prior to the pandemic, families were required to share apartments with other families due to the overwhelming need yet lack of supply of temporary accommodation. Sharing facilities is not desirable and can exacerbate an already stressful situation.  

The Council therefore commissioned a feasibility study which explored options for refurbishing and redeveloping Raglan Court. This demonstrated that it would be more cost effective to demolish the building and provide a larger facility to accommodate the rising number of homeless families and generate budget savings. However, despite the building being considered moribund, Homes England’s Affordable Homes Programme only funds additional units and not replacement units. This generates a significant viability gap at Raglan Court.  

Using HAP funding, the Council therefore intended to review other sites in the city, including sites with non-residential uses, to enable delivery of a new flagship homeless facility. 

In August 2022 a consultancy with a proven track record of property development were appointed to undertake assessments of two Council owned buildings. This commission was designed to establish if they are suitable (by alteration, or demolition and rebuild) to replace Raglan Court as the city’s flagship facility for homeless families.   

In line with the brief, this consultancy procured a surveyor to: 

• Provide Open Market Valuations for the two selected sites, as well as Raglan Court. This was required to shape judgements within the local authority regarding the future potential of each building. 
• Identifying and reviewing additional sites in Plymouth suitable for homeless families’ provision. Eleven additional sites were identified, although, upon further investigation, most lacked the required affordability or availability. However, one of the identified sites, was briefly incorporated into the Council’s consideration for future homelessness provision and senior officers had discussions with a range of partners’ about the possibility of bringing this development forward. 

Furthermore, architects were procured to provide an options appraisal for the original sites. Between September and December 2022, the Project Team met every other week to shape design options on both sites to ensure a cost-effective way of providing a site that could facilitate: 

• Between 12 to 24 self-contained flats - including flexible options for one, two or three bedroom apartments.
• A controlled pedestrian access arrangement that can be supervised by on-site management.
• A space to deliver group sessions.
• A kitchen to teach culinary skills.
• A space to deliver a statutory homelessness service including meet and greet area as well as consultation and meeting rooms. 

 This allowed the advisers to provide two design options for each of the sites, in accordance with the city’s requirements. Following a period of additional consultation and amendments, the final report was produced, succinctly presenting the type of homeless families’ accommodation that could be provided on each site, and the projected costs in delivering each scheme.  

Alongside project findings, PCC officers conducted additional investigations into the scale of additional benefits that would ensue by replacing Raglan Court. This has included: local authority revenue savings through a reduced need to fund homeless families’ accommodation in local B&Bs; the scale of carbon reduction and energy savings to be gained by using a thermally efficient building; and the reduction in PCC staffing costs required should the new site be owned and managed by a local Registered Provider. We have also conducted initial conversations with two of the cities’ largest RPs who have both expressed an interest in developing the proposed accommodation.  

Following presentations of project findings to senior local authority officers and the PCC Cabinet Member for Housing and Communities, officers were granted approval to: 

• Use the commissioned works to conduct a detailed SWOT analysis into the suitability of each site to provide homeless families’ accommodation in the city.   
• Conduct further investigations into the scale of revenue savings that could be achieved by replacing Raglan Court with a modern, fit-for-purpose homeless families’ facility.   
• Understand from interested Registered Providers the financial viability of the above options (including how much PCC would need to contribute to project delivery).  
• Assess whether the above options are eligible to benefit from Brownfield Land Release Funding (BLRF).  

 These investigations led to the selection of a preferred site. However, it remains an expensive proposal. PCC are therefore commissioning further works to ascertain whether additional floors could be safely added to the building, delivering an additional six to ten flats. This would further meet need and deliver a more financially viable scheme. The primary consideration is whether adding additional floors would be considered safe by a structural engineer. 

This work has enabled Officers to: 

• Position one council-owned site as the preferred option to deliver a flagship facility for homeless families. It has enabled officers to meaningfully present this option as a desirable alternative to selling the council-owned building to gain much-needed capital receipts.  
• Conduct additional assessments - ascertaining whether more flats could be added to the refurbished building - creating a more financially viable scheme and further meeting ever-growing housing need.
• Establish a greater understanding of the costs required to convert two council-owned buildings of different sizes, configuration and purposes into a new facility comprising 12-24 units and the associated services. 

This takes PCC closer to the reality of replacing Raglan Court with a homeless families’ facility that is fit-for-purpose and realising the following benefits: 

• Significant qualitative wellbeing impacts for homeless families with complex needs.  
• The provision of more high quality, affordable and accessible supported housing units for homeless families.
• New homelessness front desk to refresh homelessness services and establish partnerships for prevention.
• Free up Raglan Court and the homelessness services front desk and offices for redevelopment. 
• Significant B&B budget savings.
• Jobs for local people in the building and development industries. 

• Conduct additional investigations into whether more flats would be deliverable at the chosen site.
• Conduct further investigations into the scale of revenue savings that could be achieved by replacing Raglan Court with a modern, fit-for-purpose homeless families’ facility.
• Work with local Registered Providers to assess the financial viability of delivery (including how much PCC and Homes England would need to contribute).
• Assess to what extent the project could benefit from Brownfield Land Release Fund (BLRF) and to what extent that supports the financial viability of these proposals. 
• Prepare a Business Case for the chosen proposals to be considered by local politicians. 
• If approved, move forward with development including preparing a planning application.  

What went well 

Selecting a dedicated officer to oversee project delivery and consult with the procured advisers every other week allowed PCC to shape the designs so that they best suited the need of Plymouth’s homeless families. The selected officer also utilised the expertise of colleagues in different departments where necessary to ensure proposals would deliver on a wide range of priorities. For example, this oversight allowed officers to shape designs in real time so to that proposals could include bedrooms that flex in their size through adjoining doors. This means the accommodation could be adaptable to the changing size of families located in the building. 

What could be improved 

In the current climate where local authorities are facing significant financial pressures, the council is facing tough decisions between selling its capital assets to balance the books or utilise them for purposes such as meeting housing need. Given the scale of these pressures, PCC Officers face the realistic possibility that capital receipts might be prioritised over our preferred option for a new flagship homeless facility. In future, officers would consider asking for a bigger budget from the Housing Advisers Programme and procuring consultants who could also use empirical evidence to strengthen the case that more effective homelessness provision would have greater social and economic benefits to the local authority than the sale of capital assets no matter how large.   

Furthermore, in future PCC would undertake more focused and extensive market engagement before going out to procurement. Whilst the application from the selected advisers was strong, we received feedback in the following weeks that many organisations choose not to apply for council-led projects for fear of wasting resources on the tender process when there is a small chance of being selected to complete the works. In future, and in our HAP 23/24 works, PCC Officers have consulted a broader range of organisations in the pre-procurement period and have provided assurances that the number of bidders’ might not be as high as some think. 

Whilst specifying the kind of additional services we needed the buildings to provide (interview/consultation rooms, shared kitchen, communal space, storage, office space etc.), on reflection, insufficient thought went into maximum/minimum size and amount of each of these rooms, so that we could utilise space most effectively within the designs. PCC Officers are ensuring that more detailed thinking is going into this element of the forthcoming designs. 

Benjamin Stein, Housing Delivery Officer, Plymouth City Council: [email protected]