NHS Trust has been slammed for not using its own empty residential buildings to house key workers.
The NHS has been calling for developers to provide more key worker accommodation, and has also requested more funding. But, according to the Empty Homes Agency, trusts have been leaving large residential buildings and easily converted office sites empty.
EHA chief executive Ashley Horsey said the NHS deserved the agencys “dishonour award”. “It owns several empty residential buildings, including a block at the award-winning Ridgewood Centre, Camberley, Surrey, and an unused crescent of houses in Windsor Walk, Denmark Hill, SE5. It has thousands of ready-made opportunities to house staff.
“The worst thing about the Windsor Walk houses is that we believe they have been empty for at least five years, even though theyre only about 200 yards from the teaching hospital in south London, which is crying out for housing.”
Kings College accommodation officer Neil Chapman said the hospital was looking for funding for key worker housing: “We are short of accommodation and have been looking for ways to cope with the problem.”
He claimed that Maudsley NHS Trust, which owns the Windsor Walk properties, had plans to redevelop the houses as key worker accommodation.
The NHS recently appointed John Yates as accommodation co-ordinator to tackle the shortage of housing via public- and private-sector solutions.
But Horsey was sceptical of Chapmans claims. “To say there are plans is just not good enough – the problem is too big for anyone to stick their heads in the sand,” he said.
“If the NHSs plans are going to take another five years to come to fruition, then there are numerous housing associations that would be willing to take the properties on short term, as happened with the Highways Agency buildings in Croydon.”
EGi News 09/06/01
