Fears workers could lose out to flats

An application to turn the Department for Works and Pensions (DWP) offices on High Street in Hull where benefits and processing workers are based into 33 apartments could get the go ahead next week.

Council officials are backing the plans which caused consternation among workers when they were first aired last year.

Mike Degnan, branch secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union, said they remained concerned that benefits processing would be taken away from Hull altogether, as the DWP was cutting down the number of centres dotted round the country.

The centre, in the heart of Hull’s Old Town, deals with claims from across the region.

He said: “When the application became common knowledge an objection was raised on the ground that it does pose a threat to 350 benefit processing staff.

“We have raised this with management locally; their response was if necessary relocation would be a possibility to other premises in the city.

“But what we are concerned about is that the DWP is currently going through a programme of estate rationalisation up and down the country that involves cutting back on the number of centres where benefits are currently processed.”

The plans involve the five upper floors of the 1960s building on the River Hull and next to the new swing-bridge being turned into self-contained flats with the ground floor remaining as offices.

The design brief forsees the building being clad in copper with a bronze finish.

But Mr Degnan said the building “stuck out like a sore thumb”, adding: “I can’t imagine anyone successfully redeveloping it as a residential property.”