Plans have gone in to demolish the former home of a Lancaster centre for homeless people after the charity moved to a new bigger premises.
Lancaster & District Homeless Action Service (LHDAS) left its former home, a portacabin on Edward Street, on April 19 and relocated to a newly-refurbished base in the city.
LHDAS' Edward Street premises was built in 1992 and the service became a registered charity in 2002, providing housing advice to the street homeless and those in housing poverty.
Refurbishments at the new centre at 2 Aalborg Place began in January 2023.
The new LHDAS centre is pictured below.
Phil Moore, centre manager at LHDAS, said: "The building, which is on three floors, is in excellent condition and is centrally located, but lacked the facilities to meet the needs of street homeless and vulnerably housed people.
"A kitchen, shower, laundry facilities, a medical room, meeting room, workstations, and offices for LDHAS and visiting organisations have all been installed.
"The latter are vital to the services that we offer as the ‘Homeless Hub’ (a one-stop-shop) which has been an increasingly prominent feature of our operation in recent years," said Mr Moore.
"The organisations which work closely with us at Edward Street such as Changing Futures, Red Rose Recovery, Calico, The Well and Citizens Advice, to name but a few, all have office space available to them, plus the meeting room.
"Our number of clients continues to rise, and our services are needed more than ever. The shortage of social housing and the shrinking private rented sector makes it increasingly difficult to find suitable accommodation for the street homeless and vulnerably housed people we support."
In a report published on the Lancaster City Council website this week, Mr Moore (pictured below) said the charity's old building will be "reduced to pieces and then removed".
"The work is necessary because we were obliged by the terms of the lease, which we have with Lancaster City Council, to demolish the building when we vacated it," said Mr Moore.
"The building is a self-contained site surrounded by fencing which will also be removed. The land, which was formerly part of the Edward Street car park, belongs to Lancaster City Council and we are not aware of the site being of archaeological interest."
The old building on Edward Street is pictured below.
Lancaster City Council will make a decision on planning permission for the demolition in due course.
LHDAS is open at its new Aalborg Place centre from 9.30am to 1pm Monday to Friday.
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