‘I have worries about the security of these women’
99 – 105 Durham Street, East Hull(Image: Google Maps)
Councillors on Hull City Council‘s planning committee have voted to postpone making a decision on plans to turn a former East Hull care home into a 15-bed house in multiple occupation (HMO). The application was discussed at the committee after a ward councillor raised concerns.
The application seeks permission to turn the former Durham Care Home, at 99-105 Durham Street, into a HMO. The plans explain how the site would be used to house vulnerable mothers and their children, and pregnant women.
Plans add that trained staff would also be on site to support the mothers and help prepare them for independent living. 11 of the 15 bedrooms would be for one person. 4 would have space for two people.
Plans state: “The service will be led by an operator with 24+ years’ nursing experience working with vulnerable adults and families, including drug and alcohol detox/rehabilitation. This clinical background informs robust safeguarding, risk assessment, trauma-informed practice, and partnership working with various healthcare providers, charities, midwifery, perinatal mental health, and substance-misuse services.”
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The application was called in by Cllr Linda Chambers (Liberal Democrat). As a Drypool ward councillor, Cllr Chambers represents the area where site sits.
“It’s already a busy, densely populated area,” Cllr Chambers told the committee. She added: “It’s a much needed facility, and I don’t deny that, but I think we need a good quality facility, and I question that.”
The councillor, who is also the council’s cabinet member for Adult Services and Public Health, added: “The young women coming to this place are being shoehorned into a place that was originally built as a care home.” The application’s agent also spoke at the meeting, reminding the committee of the application’s recommendation for approval by officers.
Cllr Christine Randall (West Carr, Liberal Democrat) suggested deferring the application. “We are talking about housing in an environment with vulnerable young women, I have concerns about the safeguarding issues surrounding that, and I have worries about the security of these women as well because if they’re coming form an abuse relationship or something like that, who is going to make sure that there is no access on to the site for somebody who might be a protentional abuser. My I suggest we defer this application until we get a proper management plan for the site.”
A council officer added that a deferral could also be useful for the council to discuss whether application being submitted as a HMO is “the right application type” as, he explained, the application seems more like a residential institution which, the committee were told, could be done under the site’s current planning permission. The officer said “It pretty much sounds to me that’s what the intention of this is, rather than a HMO.”
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