Westminster buys Hopkinson House for temporary accommodation
Westminster City Council has announced that it has bought Hopkinson House for use as temporary accommodation. The purchase was made as part of the Council’s temporary accommodation acquisitions programme and will be used to meet the increasing demand for emergency housing in Westminster.
“The purchase will allow Westminster City Council to place households in need of emergency housing within the borough,” the council said in a press release.
Hopkinson House, at 88 Vauxhall Bridge Road, is a large 4-storey Victorian building built in 1906. In recent years, it has been a hostel for vulnerable adults. The Council’s acquisition will replace the hostel, with the building converted to provide 33 in-borough temporary accommodation homes for Westminster families.
The property was previously owned by a housing association that made the decision to put the building up for sale in 2022. The council conducted a thorough financial appraisal, demonstrating that the acquisition offers good value for money and complies with the Council’s fiduciary duty to taxpayers. The purchase will be funded from the Temporary Acquisitions budget and some external grant funding is also expected.
The building will now undergo refurbishment, subject to planning consent. Once the renovation is completed, it will contain a mix of larger and smaller units with the intention to maximise the number of family-sized units. This initiative is part of the Council’s ongoing programme of temporary accommodation acquisitions, which was recently accelerated with an extra allocation of £85 million approved by the Cabinet.
