A SENIOR Cheshire West and Chester councillor says the borough’s rough sleeping rate is at its lowest-ever level.

Cllr Matt Bryan, Labour, told the LDRS that the area has between ‘one and three on the rough sleeper count’ currently.

Praising a ‘proper multi-agency response since March’, the Upton ward representative added: “We still have a huge amount of people in temporary accommodation. Our housing officers work around the clock to get them into long term accommodation. Quite often they don’t have cooking facilities so we have volunteer agencies helping.

“There’s no single homeless person with the same needs, unfortunately. With some complex cases they have been on the streets for four or five years, so they have lost faith in the services — and have serious mental health issues or substance issues, so there’s no one-size-fits-all.”

Although work has resulted in a very small number of people sleeping rough in the borough, Cllr Bryan outlined that between 120-140 were in ‘temporary accommodation’, with ‘new people being moved on at a fast rate’.

Of this, the cabinet member for the climate emergency said: “It is a problem which has been continuing. There’s a new demographic of people becoming homeless. That’s people who fall out with partners or families so it is a much broader situation.

“The issues people face on the streets do not stop, even in a hotel. There’s still addiction, there’s still mental health issues. There’s still an increase of all the kind of [problems] of having to sleep rough but it is in an environment which is more manageable.”

CWAC has benefitted from a raft funding from central government, under its ‘Everybody In’ policy, including cash for the council’s ‘Winter Offer’.

It has allowed CWAC to establish MARS -- the Multi-Agency Rough Sleeping project -- which includes expertise from a variety of organisations in the charity and public sector.

Now, Cllr Bryan is calling for this funding -- which is time-bound to March 31, 2021 -- to be extended: “I’d like to see the time frame for the government funding in place extended. We have priorities which are good to go like the Mulberry Centre which has been a huge success.

“It is hugely important. It is important to anyone. It is important for business in the cities and towns and for the people that need that help to access that help. It is really important. The reality is that we are facing a housing crisis in the UK. We need to start moving people on, into quality accommodation."