A team from national law firm Clarke Willmott LLP has helped secure unused buildings in Gloucester to be used as accommodation for rough sleepers.

Clarke Willmott LLP acted for Gloucester City Homes (GCH) on the acquisition of property across the city, which will provide 37 units of safe accommodation to keep people from sleeping on the streets.

GCH is the first organisation to claim a Government grant totalling £1.7 million as part of the Next Steps Accommodation Programme (NSAP) for this project. The units will be at St Michael’s Square and Burleigh House in the city centre and Olympus Park in Quedgeley.

Clare Gregory, a partner in Clarke Willmott’s commercial property team, said:

“We were pleased to assist on this significant deal for our client GCH which allows the organisation to develop and provide housing for Gloucester’s homeless.

“We worked swiftly to complete this deal and it is great to hear that by April 2021 this project will be providing temporary housing that will support people and enable them to move into permanent homes.”

Robert Panou, Head of Assets and Development at GCH, said:

“We are really pleased to get started on this project to provide much needed long-term accommodation for those who were rough sleeping in Gloucester.

“As part of the Governments ‘Everyone in’ initiative, around 15,000 people who were sleeping rough have been placed into emergency accommodation during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Next Steps Accommodation Programme has been put into place to support local authorities to prevent these people from returning to rough sleeping.

“We are really excited to improve the future prospects of the homeless and in turn bring positive benefits to Gloucester as a City.

“We’d like to thank the team at Clarke Willmott for their thorough, diligent and knowledgeable help throughout the acquisition process.”

Clare Gregory was assisted on the deal by trainee solicitor Carla Sloman, who is due to qualify with Clarke Willmott later this month.

Clarke Willmott is a national law firm with offices in Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, London, Manchester, Southampton and Taunton.

For more information visit www.clarkewillmott.com