We plan to renovate and repurpose the Morrell House care home to create 13 dwellings for affordable rent – along with plentiful communal and community space.
Interested in joining the co-operative? Or learn about the project?
Find out moreYorSpace and Morrell House Housing Co-operative have been working together to assess the site’s potential and engage with the local community to develop plans for the site.
We’re looking to achieve high levels of sustainability by reusing and repurposing the existing building as much as possible, while still bringing in changes that improve efficiency.
In particular, our aim is to:
The unoccupied Residential Care home, which closed in 2018 is made up of a central two storey L-shaped central block with a single storey block to the front with a sheltered courtyard to the rear that connects the two ends of the central L shaped block.
The single storey structure to the west houses the main entrance of the building along with a commercial kitchen and other ancillary facilities that supported the building’s former function as a care home. The rest of the building is made up of a series of bedrooms, bathrooms and small function rooms across the two storey central and East wings.
There has been a regular schedule of formal and informal community involvement to aid the development of the design proposals and helped raise awareness of the project, which started in October 2021 during York Design Week that was led by OpHouse and Sheffield University students as part of the Live Projects module. Since then the Project Delivery team has run a series of design workshops and outreach activities that have been run at Morrell House or in the surrounding Burton Green area.
If you're interested in finding out more about a YorSpace development, then why not become a YorSpace member, it costs £2 and allows you to join our residents' register. YorSpace will notify you when allocations are open for a new home with one of our partner Co-operatives.
Alternatively if you're specifically interested in joining Morrell House Housing Co-op then you can reach out and sign up to their mailing list.
The site is located at Morrell House, to the north of York city centre in Clifton. The site comprises a vacant residential care home for up to 29 older people, which closed in 2018 and was previously operated by CYC, understood to have specialised in care for older people with dementia. The site is bound by apartments to the north (Mawdin House) and Bootham Stray (open space) to the east. Residential apartments (Magdalene and Meeks House) form the southern boundary, with Burton Stone Lane forming the western boundary.
There is vehicular access taken from the southern boundary of the site via an existing access via Burton Stone Lane, which serves the main existing car park with circa 8 spaces. The site access is shared with the existing apartment buildings to the south of the site (Magdalene House and Meeks House). There is also an additional access provided to the north of the site which accommodates access to a smaller car park for the site, with circa 3 spaces, as well being shared access with the existing Mawdlin House apartment building.
There are 8 secure and sheltered cycle parking spaces available at the existing site (4 stands accommodating 2 bicycles each), provided in the southern car park via Burton Stone Lane on the southern boundary of the site.
The project is a partnership between OpHouse, YorSpace and, the newly formed, Morrell House Co-operative. This team has been working with Community and Self Build Officer, Tim Moon, along with other members of the Housing team at CYC to develop the proposals for a community led housing redevelopment of Morrell House.