New ‘micro’ homes to be installed on city land
MICRO homes not much bigger than a shipping container are to be built in Cornwall in a quest to help local people out of homelessness.
Cornwall Council has granted planning permission for SoloHaus to build 15 micro homes on council-owned land at Old County Hall in Truro.
The aim of the easy and quick to erect modular homes is to help tackle Cornwall’s housing crisis by providing homes for local people who are ready to move on from emergency accommodation to the second stage of their journey out of homelessness and rough sleeping. The first residents are expected to move into their new homes in early July.
Cllr Olly Monk, Cornwall Council portfolio holder for housing and planning, said: “We are facing a serious and escalating housing crisis in Cornwall and are taking direct action to provide homes for people that need our help. These modular SoloHaus homes, which are ready to be dropped on to sites with all fixtures and fittings included, are an evolution of the temporary cabin-style emergency accommodation that we provided in Truro, Penzance and Camborne to support vulnerable people during the pandemic.
“SoloHaus has been designed so they can be deployed equally well as either permanent homes or for shorter periods for use on what we call ‘meanwhile sites’ awaiting redevelopment. This means that they can be simply disconnected from services, lifted by crane and moved to another site. This is exactly what we’ll be doing at the Old County Hall site in the future as it’s scheduled for wider redevelopment in the coming years.”
The new scheme comes on the back of the successful ‘bunkabin’ scheme, which saw containers turned into temporary accommodation for rough sleepers last year built in Truro and Penzance. As well as the 15 micro homes scheduled to be built near Old County Hall in Truro, there are plans for a total of 79 self-contained onebedroom homes to be installed at various sites throughout Cornwall for use by people in urgent housing need.
Cornwall Council said that a planning application has been submitted for a small site in Penryn, and schemes are being worked up in both Penzance and Newquay. Further sites will then follow in other parts of Cornwall over the coming months.
The homes have been designed by The Hill Group with the help of leading homelessness charities in the Cambridge area to provide a safe, secure, comfortable and independent place to stay for people who are homeless or have been homeless in the recent past. The properties are single-storey fully self-contained homes with kitchen, living and dining area, bedroom and bathroom and arrive fully furnished with everything necessary for a person to move into the same day, right down to knives, forks and bed linen.
The Truro site will be managed by Cornwall Housing, with each tenant receiving additional support as required to help them to find a regular source of income and a more permanent home. Cllr Monk added: “This is about us recognising that there are people in our communities that really need our help and providing them with a safe, secure home that can be deployed quickly.”