Another Torbay hotel site to become affordable homes

The next stage in Torbay Council’s pioneering scheme to turn redundant hotels into social housing is likely to be rubber-stamped next week.

The former Brampton Court Hotel in Torquay’s St Luke’s Road South has already been converted into homes.

Now another unused hotel is next in line. The name of the hotel is not being revealed ahead of the meeting of the council’s cabinet next week.

But members are likely to earmark £1 million of council money to go ahead with it.

On top of that, around £2 million has already been pledged by the government in the Devon and Torbay devolution deal announced last year. Money from an increased council tax levy on second homes in the bay will also be used.

The so-called Scheme Two will see the council build 14 homes for social rent on the site of a former hotel that already has planning permission in place. The council aims to buy it next month.

A report to the meeting says: “An increase in (housing) supply is a highly beneficial outcome, but the additional benefit is that it can help stop such sites entering a state of dereliction, as well as reducing the likelihood of long-term anti-social behaviour.”

When the ‘Hotels to Homes’ initiative was launched last September, the council said it planned to re-invest the money it made from selling affordable homes into building more of them.

“The beauty of this is that over the years further projects of the same sort will be funded by the sale of the first one,” Cllr Nick Bye (Con, Wellswood) said at the time.