Changing rooms for home comfort

First Choice homes have carried out work at property in Diggle so a disabled person and family can move in. Matthew Gilray (Regeneration Officer OMBC), Shirish Singapori (First Choice Homes), Cllr John McCann.

AN EMPTY house will become an accessible new home for a disabled person thanks to an innovative project.

Oldham Council and First Choice Homes Oldham (FCHO) have brought the Saddleworth property back into use to provide suitable accommodation for a disabled person and their family.

The house had been bought by a former tenant under the Right to Buy scheme but was then advertised for sale and has remained unoccupied.

As the council is actively targeting empty properties and is in desperate need for suitably adapted homes, it made the decision to buy it back and carry out work to bring it up to decent-homes standard.

Both the purchase and the works have been funded using money from a private developer in Saddleworth as part of their legal responsibility to provide affordable housing in the area.

It’s the first time that Oldham Council has been able to use such cash to buy back a former Right to Buy property and then rent it to someone in need.

The council’s Cabinet member for housing and community services, Councillor John McCann, said: “The tenant who has been offered this property currently lives in unsuitable accommodation, which cannot be adapted to meet their needs.

“By working in this way, we have used scarce resources to bring a property back into use, to help meet the needs of a disabled person and ensure that the previous investment in this house in terms of adaptations has not been wasted.

“So it basically is common sense and delivers excellent value for money.

“We hope that this and similar projects will save valuable resources we are currently spending on disabled adaptations. If further money of this kind is received in the future, it will also be used to provide additional affordable homes.”

FCHO chief executive Hugh Broadbent said: “We are proud to support bringing empty properties back into use.

“This project fully demonstrates our commitment to Oldham.”

The house will be managed by FCHO, which delivers housing services to more than 12,000 tenants across Oldham, and let to the person at an affordable rent.