Homeless accommodation plan approved for Harrogate garages site

Harrogate Borough Council has approved its own plans to demolish 10 garages on Woodfield Close to make way for two temporary homes.

Maggie Gibson, housing needs manager at the authority, told a meeting on Tuesday that the single-bed properties will be for people who are unable to use shared accommodation because of their complex needs.

She added: “This is accommodation where they will reside in for an extended period of time, but it means they can move on and enable other people to also use the pathway.

“It could be up to two or three years that they stay there because people’s circumstances change.”

Using garage sites to bring forward new homes has been a tactic used by the council to tackle Harrogate’s housing problems, with plans for affordable homes recently approved in Pannal and Ripon.

The Woodfield Close site is located near the footbridge which connects to the Nidderdale Greenway, and some garages will be retained.

The area will also be resurfaced to provide five public parking spaces, with potential for electric vehicle charging points.

There are, however, no plans for solar panels on the two properties after council officers said they ran into complications with tariffs and shared roof spaces.

Councillor Pat Marsh, leader of the opposition Liberal Democrat group, expressed disappointment over this and that the homes are to be heated by gas boilers and not more environmentally-friendly methods such as air source heat pumps

She said: “I will support this because of the need for this type of accommodation, but I’m really upset that this local authority hasn’t thought of another way of using anything but gas.

“We know that in a few years gas boilers are being phased out by the government.

“This council has got to start to grasp that there is a climate emergency.”

Earlier this year, the council approved its own plans to demolish eight garages in Pannal and replace them with two new homes.

At the time, the council said there were around 1,800 households waiting for social housing in the Harrogate district – around 75% of which had requested to live in suburbs such as Pannal.