Rochdale Council spends £1m to set up Rochdale Housing Solutions building

A new council office building has been created at a cost of just over £1m to the taxpayer – more than £600,000 over the original budget.

The new Rochdale Housing Solutions building, on Smith Street in the town centre, has been remodelled and leased for just shy of £1.026m, council officers confirmed. The original estimated cost of the project was £350,000, with part of the price offset from the council sharing in Morrisons’ (the previous tenant) empty property cost saving from surrendering their lease early.

The latest meeting of the cabinet in Number One Riverside heard how the extra £676,000 spent came from the acquisition and refurbishment of the former hair salon next door to the building as well as inflation costs.

The council is hoping that a customer-facing Housing Solutions office is a key tool in the prevention of homelessness and other housing issues by engaging with the public earlier problems that can be resolved.
 

Read more: New customer service centre to support with housing issuesPublished: 19 August 2023

The meeting on 27 August heard how the new building would see residents given advice on accessing housing and access to homelessness prevention services, housing register enquiries, landlord and tenant services as well as housing the green energy, climate change and housing standards team.

A report read: “Overall expenditure was higher due to increased scope of the project, namely being the acquisition and refurbishment of 2b Smith Street (Marnie’s Hair Lounge) as well as higher than initially anticipated material and development costs due to inflation and local market forces. The additional refurbishment costs for 2b Smith Street were £120,600.58.

“A notable item of additional expenditure not anticipated was repairs to the roof of the building, which were the responsibility of the Council as lessee, as confirmed by the Council’s Estates department. The requirement for those works only became apparent mid-way through refurbishment. Those costs were in the region of an additional £40,000.”

 

 

The refurbishment saw the former shop and hair salon transformed into a purpose-built home for the Housing Solutions team. This includes a ‘non-confrontational’, relaxing space for customers to engage face-to-face with specialist officers; meeting rooms; conference rooms; semi-private seating areas; and bathroom facilities.

The building is already in use by the team, but the official launch is ‘imminent’, the meeting heard. The cabinet was told by an officer how one man came into the office for a 10 minute face-to-face meeting and got a housing problem resolved that he couldn’t get answered via the phone.

George Lythgoe, Local Democracy Reporter