Partnership provides work and homes

Jericho trainees (Top row from left to right) Ross Byrom, Elliot Whalley, Robert Duffy and (Bottom row from left to right) Daniel Hyland and Callum Tatton at a refubished house on Kirkholt.

Young men from Kirkholt are getting the opportunity to gain construction skills and potentially build their own homes as part of a Rochdale Boroughwide Housing project.

Some 600 properties will be demolished in the Kirkholt area over several years, some of which are owned by the Council and some of which have been purchased from private owners. These will be replaced over time by new homes.

Not all of these properties need to be demolished immediately and an RBH partnership with the Council and Rochdale and Oldham Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder is working with The Jericho Foundation to develop ways its client group can be supported as well as making use of the of the properties earmarked for demolition.

Gareth Swarbrick Chief Executive of RBH said: “Vision for Kirkholt is a major regeneration project in the borough and the partners have taken an innovative approach to developing training skills for local people and providing much needed supported tenancies.”

Roger Brindle is Deputy Manager for The Jericho Foundation, a registered charity that helps disadvantaged young men overcome social problems and get back into employment. He said: “The partners have been absolutely fantastic. We have four properties in Kirkholt which our lads will be bringing up to standard. The chance to work on real homes rather than in a training room provides a much better environment to learn construction skills. It also provides them with the basic qualifications needed to apply for site operative work in the construction industry.”

One group of eight trainees has renovated the first property and used skills including plastering, painting and decorating, bricklaying, flooring, re-wiring and plumbing.

In this group two have already gained jobs in the construction industry and four have gone back into full time education. 

A new group of eight men has now started on the Kirkholt site.

Vivienne Hall works for the Vision for Kirkholt team. She said the partners were keen to ensure that during the demolition process the area was not filled with rows of boarded up houses.

“Temporary re-lets made sense, not just to meet housing need but also to ensure that the Kirkholt street scene was not negatively affected by the regeneration work.

“The Jericho Foundation will be taking four properties which their clients will renovate and will then offer temporary supported tenancies in these properties which will help the client group develop tenancy management skills.”

Trainees from The Jericho Foundation recently unveiled the first of their four properties at an open day which was attended by representatives from partner organisations.