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| Adactus Group Chief Executive, Paul Lees marks the start of building work on Long Marsh Lane with a sod cutting on Tuesday 27th May 2014. Photo: Adactus |
The Adactus Housing Association has begun building work on Long Marsh Lane on what was the Lancaster City Football Club car park and the Dolly Blue Tavern, to create more one-bedroom apartments to rent and a new homeless hostel.
The £1.5m development, announced last year and which includes projects eleswhere in the district, was secured in partnership with Lancaster City Council and received funding through the government’s Homes and Community Agency.
The Council’s hope is that the project will provide much-needed homeless accommodation with assistance orovided to residents to help them move into a settled lifestyle.
The plans include the building of a homeless hostel offering accommodation from 8.00pm to 8.00am.
The Adactus development will be completed in one phase, taking approximately eleven months to build and will create 18 one bedroom cottage style apartments all for affordable rent. Adactus Housing Association will manage the apartments on behalf of the Group and Lancaster Council has 100 per cent nomination rights.
This is the first development that the Adactus Housing Group will project manage with its newly recruited in-house building contractor team.
The Lancaster Guardian noted last year that there is currently no hostel accommodation in the city for over 25s, although the YMCA offers housing for young people in Fleet Square and Adactus has eleven apartments for young homeless people at Mariners View.
“Affordable one bedroom accommodation availability is one of the biggest issues facing housing today, commented the company’s Group Executive Paul Lees said. “Our latest development on Long Marsh Lane will provide this type of much-needed affordable accommodation for local people and Adactus is delighted to have worked with both Lancaster City Council and The Homes and Communities Agency in bringing it to fruition.”
“The delivery of affordable housing is an important council priority,” added Councillor Karen Leytham, Cabinet member with responsibility for housing. “Lancaster district is in tremendous need of new properties, especially one bedroom accommodation. This latest development on Long Marsh Lane is another important step forward in providing much-needed affordable rented accommodation and as a result of our strong partnership with Adactus.”
All new apartments will feature high levels of insulation and will be designed to obtain maximum solar gains which should help reduce the fuel costs of the occupants. All ground floor apartments will come with their own private gardens.
The members of the Adactus Group Structure are a group of housing associations that work closely together to provide and manage affordable housing for rent and shared ownership in the North West of England.
There’s no shortage of building work on Lancaster’s Marsh and St. George’s Quay at present. Building work has begun just as Persimmon Homes have submitted revised plans for their Luneside East project, and continued house building work on brown field sites on the Quay.
Plans were also submitted to the Council in April to convert the Victoria Hotel on West Road into housing, with offices and a chemist on the ground floor, which have, as with the proposed re-development of the Moorlands Hotel, prompted concerns about parking.
“Parking in this area is already becoming a big problem as train users park here instead of the train station car park,” notes local resident Mo Docherty. “This has got worse since introducing residential permit parking in the Fairfield area.
“This has just pushed the parking problem down to us,” she argues. “I can not imagine where all the extra cars from this development will be able to park without causing severe problems.”