Students breathing new life into old homes while learning a trade

Hull City College’s partnership with the charity Probe has seen more than 25 disused properties completely transformed and turned into affordable homes and apartments.

More than 200 students have benefited from the East Hull Voids Empty Homes Partnership scheme so far, getting hands on experience as bricklayers, joiners and plasterers.

The charity employs three full-time tradesmen and Hull City College has a member of 
staff, John Farnhill, seconded to Probe to supervise the students.

The projects can range from minor refurbishments and redecorating jobs to complete overhauls of derelict properties.

Probe started as a social charity in Hull in 1996. Its partnership with Hull City College has been running for three-and-a-half years.

Since it was established the East Hull, the Voids Empty Homes Partnership scheme has brought 23 houses back into use and created 18 apartments – which are either sold or rented out as affordable housing.

Now the team are working on their most high profile project to date – the birthplace of one of the city’s most famous sons, J Arthur Rank.

J Arthur Rank became a giant of British cinema. He was born in 1888 in Hull and his father, Joseph Rank, had built a substantial flour milling business which later became known as Rank Hovis McDougall. But for several years J Arthur Rank’s birthplace – a house in Holderness Road in the east of Hull – has been boarded up.

Probe’s general manager Steve Alltoft said: “It is a house of stature but it has been derelict for several years.

“It had a blue plaque on the wall but boarded up windows.”

The Rank House is being converted into apartments and the renovated building is expected to be unveiled later this year.

It follows the previous renovation of the Lion Hotel in Hull which Probe also converted into apartments.

Probe works with the Hull Council to identify empty houses which need work to bring back into use and with Hull City College to provide training opportunities for young people.

Probe is able to buy these properties and then return them to the market after building and refurbishment is completed.

There are an estimated 2,500 suitable empty houses in the city.

Mr Alltoft said: “I think the most important part of the partnership is that our students are not just working in a training environment.

“They are doing something which will last and can take pride in the difference their work is making turning empty void houses into homes.

Apprentice Tom Binks agrees and said: “If you work in college it might be on a training wall which is taken down afterwards and nobody would see it.”

The partnership has been run with Government funding since it was established three-and-a-half years ago.

A new bid is to be submitted to the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Mr Alltoft said: “The project has received outside funding.

“It does generate money too, though through the sale or renting of properties which we 
finish and put back on the market.

“We could run the project self-sufficiently using this money but it would have to be on a much smaller scale than that we work on at the moment.”

The work has been recognised at the National Green Gown Awards where it received the Social Responsibility Award for 2014, fending off entries from universities all over the UK including Salford, Manchester, Worcester, Keele, Aberdeen, Newcastle and Liverpool.

Hull City College also has a Construction Skills Centre which offers a wide range of courses in bricklaying, carpentry, joinery and general construction operations.