THE £1.6m revamp of former offices into a 60-bed emergency hostel for rough sleepers will be decided next week.

The city council wants to turn former offices in Floyds Row, near Oxford Central police station, into a new shelter for five years.

It said it wants to ensure the building becomes a key part of dealing with homelessness, which the authority said has increased by 510 per cent over recent years.

The council owns the building and it has been empty since November 2017.

About 100 rough sleepers are living in Oxford, a massive rise from the start of the decade.

At least five rough sleepers have died since the start of December.

The ‘clear and pressing need’ for the building means although it does not ‘fully align’ to the council’s planning guidance, its officers said it should be allowed.

The new unit would be used for three services. The first would be to provide beds for people staying for up to 72 hours, the second to provide dormitory accommodation for people for up to 21 days.

A daytime assessment hub would be the third way the council uses the building.

The site is near the police station and Oxford University’s Faculty of Music.

Christ Church Meadow lies on the other side of the Trill Mill Stream.

Permission to use the former Job Centre as council offices was granted in September but the authority has not used the building since.

Just internal changes would be undertaken by the authority if its councillors give the project the go-ahead at a meeting next Wednesday.

No-one had objected to the proposal when council papers were published earlier this week. People in favour or opposed to it have until the meeting to make their views known.

Last month, Linda Smith, deputy leader of Oxford City Council, said: “Nobody should have to sleep rough in Oxford, and the new centre is an important part of our plans to realise this goal.

She added: “Next winter we are planning to provide winter-long accommodation for all rough sleepers rather than relying on temporary emergency beds that we now activate during sustained periods of freezing weather.

“If we can secure funding – from the Government or elsewhere – we hope to provide a new approach to engaging with, assessing and supporting rough sleepers off the streets. We want to offer a safe place to stay for up to 60 people.”

The council has been critical over recent months of having to bid for different pots and funds to deal with homelessness.

But the Government announced another such fund late last week.

It said it would spend up to £26m on ‘specialist tailored support’ so people can ‘recover from life on the streets and find accommodation’.

The council receives £1m from the Government’s Rough Sleepers Initiative, which has given funding to 83 local authorities.