Building work begins on railway arch village to house homeless people in Manchester

ITV Granada's Victoria Grimes reports on the first spade going into the ground on the project

Construction work has started on a dedicated village to house homeless people, on derelict land beneath a group of railway arches in Manchester.

The Embassy Village is designed to put a roof over the heads of 40 people in the Castlefield area of the city with "high quality homes... a village hall and green space for sports, socialising and growing plants."

It is the vision of Sid Williams, founder of the charity Embassy, whose work helping homeless people began with a donated rockstar tour bus - which was home to 12 men.

"People do die," Mr Williams told ITV News, "on the streets just from hypothermia.

"It's awful. We are literally building a village right here in the middle of Manchester for homeless people only.

"So, everyone who lives here, the rental contract will end their homelessness from day one. And then we'll teach them to shop and cook and budget.

"It's what we already do on a smaller scale, dotted around the city. But now we'll have a proper space to do it really well."

Some 60 businesses are giving their time for free to make the project a reality.

It also would not have happened without a £3.5m donation from The Moulding Foundation, established by Jodie and Matt Moulding. Matt is the founder of Manchester based online beauty and nutrition empire THG.

Mrs Moudling said: "I did want to get involved and I did want to help.

"But it's actually really nice to see today how many people have come together and how many people it's taken to get this far and the real sense of community in Manchester."

One of those the charity behind the village is already helping believes he could have "died" without them.

Steve Duffield found himself homeless after his mother passed away. 18 months ago, Embassy helped him to get a job in a hotel and he now rents his own home.

He said: "Without Embassy, right now I could be anywhere.

"I could be on the street. I could have died. Anything could have happened.

"I was given a home, a job and decent support. So now everything's great."

Embassy still need to raise money to staff the village once it is built. They hope to open it next year.

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