No rough sleepers found in Tameside during latest count

Tameside's council leader says there were no homeless people found sleeping on the borough's streets during a rough sleeper count last week.

Brenda Warrington made the revelation at a meeting of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, during a discussion on the plans for the A Bed Every Night programme for the next financial year.

This will see £4.5 million committed to the project by the combined authority, and an expected £1.5 million from government funding for 2021/22.

The total £6 million will be split across the ten local authorities to deliver the service over a 12-month period, funding 416 general beds and 60 for those with no recourse to public funds.

Speaking on Friday, Councillor Warrington said: “From Tameside’s point of view we have been able to support so many vulnerable people since the ABEN initiative was introduced. It really is incredible.

“Last night, they did their usual rough sleeper count and I’m really pleased to say that that count is once again zero.

“We are managing to help people, to bring them into safe places and not only that through this whole initiative we are also managing to help people into permanent accommodation and also in some places into permanent employment.

“We have helped to turn the lives around of people and that really is what it’s about.

“To give those people some support, to let them know that the way of life they had been experiencing was not all that was there for them, that they could make things better with our help.

“And they’ve done that and there is such tremendous gratitude from those people and I’m really grateful that my team in Tameside are so passionate about this. 

“It really is good that we can continue to assist those people who desperately need our assistance.”

Mayor Andy Burnham added: “That’s fantastic news from the count. You’ve got a fantastic team of people and the results are showing.”

Through Tameside council and the ABEN scheme, a new homeless shelter opened in Ashton-under-Lyne in July last year.

It was named ‘The Town House’ after pub landlady Pauline Town who has helped hundreds of people off the streets.

The Town House homeless facility in Ashton, which opened last summer. The ribbon was cut by council leader Brenda Warrington (right) along with pub landlady Pauline Town. 

The building, next to St Anne’s Church, offers accommodation as well as being a community facility offering tailored support, guidance, care, clothing and food to vulnerable people who find themselves in crisis.

The council had already recorded a significant drop in rough sleeping between 2018 to 2019, from 42 people down to five – an 86 per cent reduction.

A rough sleeper count on July 9, 2020 found no-one sleeping rough in Tameside, the first time in almost a decade that a count of this kind in the borough returned a zero result.

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