Homeless people set to move into stackable pods on Henwood Industrial Estate in Ashford

As the cost of temporary accommodation soars across the county, 23 new pods for homeless people are being stacked into place in Ashford.

They are designed to be an energy-efficient alternative to building new homes, but is the scheme on a flood-hit car park something that could be expanded to other parts of Kent? Liane Castle reports.

“Living in the car was not a good time for us, one of these pods would have been better than the street.”

Friday Quick's assessment of Ashford Borough Council's project on Henwood Industrial Estate - the first of its kind in the county - would surely be echoed by others facing a similar situation.

She and her partner Richard Warrior, from Chatham, were made homeless in 2022 after being served a Section 21 – a so-called no-fault eviction notice which allows landlords to evict a tenant without giving a reason.

Having spent three weeks living in their car, the couple say they would have loved to have been offered a pod in their time of need.

“I think more councils should do things like this," says Ms Quick, 51.

“We are still in temporary accommodation after two years and we are having issues with it, so I would absolutely take one.”

The scheme, called Fortis House, features ABC’s first net-zero carbon properties which are designed to give people a temporary roof over their heads while they seek permanent homes.

Contractors lifted the first of the 12-tonne pods into position in March and the final batch was delivered last month.

The short-term accommodation project, which is being built on the former Henwood car park next to Ashford’s fire station, is on track to finish in September with the first residents set to move in shortly after.

The authority is running the project with Zed Pods, a British modular company based in London, that designs and builds the homes in a factory before they are delivered and installed on site.

Council bosses successfully applied for money from Homes England for the scheme.

The government is contributing £80,000 per unit, making a total of £1,840,000 towards the scheme costs of £7.4m, the rest of which will be covered by ABC.

Responses to Freedom of Information (FoI) requests from KentOnline last year revealed every council in the county has seen a rise in its spending on temporary accommodation, with large sums going to private landlords.

The statistics showed costs in Ashford had risen from £739,749 in 2018-19 to £1,952,648 in 2022-23 - a rise of 163.9%.

Cllr Noel Ovenden (Ashford Independents), who has led ABC since last May, says the homelessness problem in Ashford is “huge” so his focus is to ensure the authority does everything in its power to mitigate it.

The authority has long held ambitions to convert Park Mall shopping centre to residential and is considering turning its current Civic Centre headquarters in Tannery Lane into social housing when it moves to nearby International House.

“I don't like building at any cost,” says Cllr Ovenden, who represents Wye.

“It needs to deliver something back to us as a community, as a town, to look at the bigger picture and make this a better place. It's a difficult job.

“We'll carry on despite the accusations that all we want to do is build flats.

“ABC doesn't go out there just to build flats. But if those flats were all social housing, if they're all taking people off our 2,000 waiting list for housing, I'm not going to be ashamed of that.

“Building our own social housing is the best way forward.

“People do think that the council exists just to knock it down and make flats because there is this perception that the council tax that is provided by residents is all the council is interested in.

“It's not what I'm interested in. I'm interested in my town.”

Converted shipping containers were originally set to be used at Fortis House but bosses say the Zed Pods products are greener as they have been designed to be energy efficient.

The homes will be highly insulated and triple-glazed, with 175 solar panels on the roof.

The 23 units are a mix of 13 one-bed, nine two-bed and one three-bed dwellings, to ensure a mix of individuals and families can be accommodated.

There is a large communal garden and parking spaces for 19 cars are included, including two disabled bays.

Each apartment is occupied by a single household, with its own kitchen, bathroom and private balcony.

There is additional space under the apartments to store items such as bicycles.

ABC, which has been led by an Ashford Independents/Green Party coalition since last May, approved the scheme in 2022 - despite concerns about the likelihood of flooding as the site sits next to the River Stour.

The former car park has been inundated by flood water in the past but ABC say this is not a problem as the homes are to be built on stilts raising them to a 2.4m height.

In a further update issued this week, the authority says it needs to fell “dead and dying trees” on land next to the site to “protect property in the surrounding area”.

Dr Rehan Khodabuccus, the technical and operations director at Zed Pods, hopes the scheme will help people find their feet.

“Having your own front door and your own keys makes a really big difference in people's lives,” he said.

“What we found in schemes we’ve completed elsewhere is that it created upward spirals for people.

“So people that got into a place of themselves, they got good jobs, held down that employment and which then led to future employment.

“Meeting those basic needs is very important and we hope that we've done it in a way that not only protects the people that are moving in, but also protects the environment and also looks at creating the homes that we need in the future now.“

Dr Khodabuccus says designing the scheme on the former car park is something that is also proving a challenge.

“In Ashford, we have taken a lot of learnings from other schemes around the country,” he added.

“We have had to ask, how do we create a scheme where land is limited and how could we use a brownfield site rather than looking at greenfield sites to deliver homes in a high-quality way?

“Not only do we have a high specification for environmental performance, we're actually building above an existing car park so that land was not developable in any other way shape or form.”

Dr Khodabuccus says the units are “using a lot of natural daylight inside so they're nice and bright and airy”.

He added: “We have controlled ventilation as part of the energy strategy and what that means is that you get lots of fresh air but you keep the heat within the building so that's going to reduce energy bills.

“Then you've also got the solar panels generating more energy than the building is going to consume over the course of the year.

“There are lots of nice floor finishes that are hard-wearing but nice and bright, very neutral colour decor inside, and with the natural daylight, it makes a really nice place to live.

“Our buildings also have breathable wall build-ups which means moisture doesn't get trapped within the building, so there's a very low risk of condensation inside which means a low risk of mould growth.

“We really focus on addressing those key issues that have been brought up in social housing in recent times.”

While the pods are the first of their kind in Ashford, a similar scheme for single people using SoloHaus Pods is also on the cards in Gravesend.

Developer The Hill Group has donated eight pods to Gravesham Borough Council to tackle the increase in homelessness in the borough although plans for the scheme are yet to emerge.

Dr Khodabuccus says he would like to see projects like this expanded across Kent.

“We've got about seven schemes with planning approved across the country at the moment and another 10 or so within planning or various stages of construction,” he added.

“So we're really driving through as many homes as we can across the UK.

“There is big potential in lots of different parts of Kent to look at some of those local authority sites that may have been overlooked for housing.”