The team behind the St Christopher’s Square development in Bristol have joined forces with social enterprise ACH to provide temporary housing for refugees in the city.
FORE Partnership, Amicala and Socius have transformed a vacant building in the Westbury Park site into a number of apartments for refugees in need of interim housing. The development team are awaiting the outcome of a planning application to build a ‘sustainable integrated retirement community’ on the site.
Mike Dodd, project director at Socius, said: “As a partnership with FORE and Amicala, we are deeply committed to making a positive impact in the communities we work in, both socially and environmentally.
“While we work our way through the development process, we saw an opportunity to utilise an otherwise vacant site as much needed temporary accommodation for refugees in need of accommodation.”
Aurélien Collignon, from developer FORE, added: “Creating lasting, positive social impact has been deeply imbedded into our vision as a firm since inception a decade ago. We love partnering with local social enterprises to deliver on that vision, and we have been incredibly impressed with the work of ACH, to ensure those in need can access quality accommodation while they set up their lives here in the UK.”
The building offers fully furnished, one-bedroom properties and to ensure a level of stability the residents will have a minimum lease length of 12 months and be offered at least three months’ notice ahead of any development works commencing.
Fuad Mahamed, CEO at ACH, said: “This partnership is most welcome and much needed. The refugee clients we support desperately need safe, comfortable, and affordable housing to begin the process of rebuilding their lives in this country. This project is an important contribution to this journey”
