Liverpool council is to open 348 housing units for elderly people and review the future of 16 other homes. The moves are part of an overhaul of supported housing in the city.
The 16 sheltered housing developments, owned by the council and four housing associations, are seen as out-of-date and are hard to let.

Options could include remodelling, or demolishing and rebuilding the homes. Some could be converted to extra-care units.

A project manger for the changes will be appointed next month but a spokeswoman for Liverpool council said plans were at an early stage and no preferred partners had been chosen for the schemes or possible extra-care units. She emphasised that people would not be moved from the old schemes to the new.

A spokeswoman for Riverside Housing Association, which owns four of the schemes earmarked for change, said the registered social landlord was "looking at options" including minor adaptations to two of the schemes and adaptation or rebuilding for the other two.

Barbara Laing, director of sheltered housing operator Anchor Homes, welcomed the move towards extra-care housing. She said: "We are interested in developing innovative models of extra care. We would be very interested in Liverpool's proposals and want to find out more and see how they fit in with our strategy, but it's potentially an exciting development."

The city already has six extra-care schemes in development, four of them with the city's Housing Action Trust in partnership with Anchor, Housing 21, the Guinness Trust and Liverpool Housing Trust.

Source

Housing Today