Work to build flats on Lucy Faithfull House site starts

The flats are expected to be finished in Speedwell Street in late 2022

A £10.9m project to build homes on the site of a former homeless shelter and friary in Oxford city centre has begun.

The 36 flats will be built on land formerly used by Lucy Faithfull House, which was shut in 2016 and demolished in 2018.

Oxford City Council said it is part of its first "significant" building of council housing since the 1970s.

Work earlier this year found evidence of a Dominican Order friary at the site from 1246 until 1538.

Ground breaking took place at the site with the managing director of OCHL, Helen Horne (centre), and Councillor Alex Hollingsworth (left), the city council's cabinet member for planning and housing delivery

Each flat will have two bike parking spaces in the car-free development and rooftop solar panels will generate up to 40% of the flats' power.

They are due to open in Speedwell Street in late 2022.

Thousands of people called for the homeless hostel - closed because of budget cuts - to reopen in 2017.

The city council opened its new £3.7m purpose-built homeless shelter, Matilda House, in Cowley in September 2019.

The authority said its housing company, Oxford City Housing Limited (OCHL), plans to deliver more than 2,220 new homes in and around the city over the next decade.