News

Broadland will soon be providing 30 new homes in the beautiful village of Roughton, Norfolk.  As part of the preparations for building on site, archaeological works have been taking place.

In February 2019, the lucky children from classes 6 and 7 of St Mary’s Primary School had a visit from Clem at Oxford Archaeology. Clem took them through the archaeological process and showed them a piece of Roman pottery found at the site in their village.  The children even got to have a go at archaeological ‘digging’ themselves!

Creative Matters – Living with Homelessness was launched with a special event on Friday 1 February, introducing a month-long programme at the Theatre Royal, Norwich.

In a moving practitioner session, Darren France and Lalia Choat described their research for the new verbatim play Street Life – meeting and talking to people experiencing homelessness in Norfolk. Darren and Lalia talked about the real-life stories that have gone into the play.  This impactful seminar brought home depth, breadth and multitude of reasons why people end up losing their homes.

Devin Smith, a local artist, talked about the background to her very human paintings of the homeless, telling the individuals’ personal stories.  The paintings (see selection above) are being displayed in the Theatre Royal, Stage Two and the Norwich Playhouse throughout February.

The final part of the seminar was a Q&A with Stephen Crocker, Chief Executive of the Theatre Royal.  This lively and informative session brought home how the respective agencies are working together to fight homelessness. It was encouraging to hear from Jan Sheldon, Chief Executive of St Martin’s Housing Trust, that homelessness figures in Norfolk have dropped this year. However, there is still a high demand for homes, but with agencies working closely together, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

For more information about the Creative Matters programme, or to book, please go to ntr.org.uk/CreativeMatters

Broadland Housing are delighted to enter into a new partnership with West Norfolk Housing to manage their newly completed flats.

Seven flats have been created for couples and families, two of which have full disabled access, after converting old unused office space on Broad Street.  The Broad Street scheme will be managed by Broadland Housing Association which operates similar schemes in King’s Lynn and across the county.

Council leader Brian Long said: “In our work to prevent homelessness we know that appropriate temporary accommodation can make all the difference to people at a difficult time of their lives. Schemes like Broad Street will help us avoid using bed and breakfast, and other less than suitable alternatives out of the area. It is important that people can avoid too much disruption to family life while they get themselves back on track.”

The council has set up the West Norfolk Housing Co (WNHC) to invest in schemes such as Broad Street. WNHC is a registered provider of social housing and as such can benefit from capital grants from central government for the benefit of the local community.

Chair of WNHC Ray Johnson said: “I am pleased to see former underused office accommodation transformed into great quality accommodation for such a positive use. I am looking forward to delivering more accommodation in my role in the months and years to come.”

Catherine Little, executive housing director at Broadland Housing, said: “Broadland has a strong commitment to tackling homelessness and working with our local authority partners is central to this”.

Anyone needing advice on homelessness should contact the council’s housing team on 01553 616200.