Salisbury hostel project underway

An exciting and important new development project for Westlea Housing is now underway in Salisbury.

Westlea is working in partnership with homelessness charity Alabaré to demolish the existing Damascus House homeless hostel and replace it with a state of the art purpose-built hostel. The new building, which will be more environmentally-friendly, will provide high-quality accommodation and a range of training and leisure facilities.

Vic O'Brien, GreenSquare Development Director, joined representatives from Alabaré and the Deputy Leader of Wiltshire Council, Cllr John Thomson, to officially mark the start of demolition work last week.

"The new hostel is going to be so much more than just accommodation; it will be about turning people's lives around," said Vic. "We are delighted to be working with Alabaré and Wiltshire Council on this development. It has taken a lot of hard work to get to where we are with this complex project, but the results will be tremendous for Salisbury."

"It has taken us more than three years to get to this stage and a lot of hard work has been involved," said Alabaré's Chief Executive, Andrew Lord. "I am delighted to have reached this stage in the development and to now be able to see the work really getting underway."

Deputy Leader of Wiltshire Council, Cllr John Thomson, said: "Wiltshire Council is very pleased to be associated with the project and feel it is an excellent example of different organisations working together well to deal with challenges and obstacles."

In addition to the re-development of Damascus House, the neighbouring Emmaus House will be transformed into eight 'move-on' flats for service users who are making the transition from supported accommodation to living independently.

It is hoped that the development will be complete by summer 2011.

Funding for the project has been secured from the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) including from its 'Places of Change' programme this aims to improve the services available to rough sleepers, to help them make the transition into a settled home, training or employment. Wiltshire Council has also provided an additional £500,000 to enable the scheme to go ahead, with additional funding from both Westlea and Alabaré.