IT'S official: the council's temporary winter housing provision will return.

Earlier this year, 50 volunteers worked with several rough sleepers in the old Carfax medical centre, giving them shelter and support during the coldest months of the year.

At the end of the scheme, eight people were offered accommodation and none of them have returned to the streets.

This time,Swindon Borough Council's scheme will run for four months at a different venue and it hopes to offer accommodation to 10 homeless people at the end of it.

Cllr Cathy Martyn, Swindon Borough Council’s Cabinet Member for Housing and Public Safety, said: “I am proud to be able to say that the project will go ahead again this year.

“Those who successfully complete the programme will be given suitable, permanent accommodation by the council afterwards, which we hope will be the fresh start they so badly need.

“The people we help are among the most vulnerable in our community.

"As well as being homeless, they often have severe alcohol and drug problems as well as delicate mental health issues.

“The local homelessness support organisations who worked to make the scheme such a success last year did a brilliant job and I am sure that together we can achieve the same positive results again.”

The cost of the project in 2017/18 was £42,000, which included building refurbishment and compliance work, staff costs and other provisions.

Following a successful bid for funding from central government to help reduce rough sleeping, the council has been awarded £194,000 to be spent by March 2019.

This year, £60,000 of this funding will go towards the provision, with a further £30,000 earmarked for the 2019/20 financial year.

Each year, the council spends £1.4m on providing emergency or short-term accommodation for those who need it.

The council is currently drafting the Rough Sleeper Strategy and the Homelessness Strategy which will focus resources on combating homelessness and rough sleeping.