THE future of an ex-offenders’ hostel in Winchester appears to be uncertain.

Alleyne House on Hyde Street (pictured) has been boarded up after the last resident departed.

The doors and ground floor windows of the three-storey Georgian house have been protected by sheets of metal shuttering.

The hostel was operated by Stonham Housing Association, part of the Home Group.

Carol Harrowell, Home Group head of client services, said: “As a not-for-profit charity we rely on external funding for our services. Funding for this scheme ceased in March and all residents moved onto alternative accommodation in July. We’re currently exploring alternative uses for the building.”

The local city councillor Dominic Hiscock said: “It has been sealed about a week. But it has been closing down for a while because of funding issues and the people were being rehoused.

“It is a shame because it fulfilled a role somewhere for ex-offenders to live.”

Cllr Hiscock said: “They have had difficult people there but it was staffed 24/7, so there was no problem. Once it started to be run down it became a problem.  “Some neighbours are relieved now it has been shuttered up. People have asked me what is the future of it, but I don’t know.”

The operators worked closely with the probation service.

The hostel was set up in around the 1990s after a donation by Sir John Alleyne who had been the vicar of Weeke and was a campaigner on social issues, including the homeless, helping to set up the Trinity Centre in the 1980s and the action group on asylum seekers when they were being held in Winchester Prison at the turn of the Millennium.

An issue will be the terms of the bequest and the uses to which the building can be put. An 18th or 19th century building in Hyde would normally be expected to reach a high six-figure sum if sold for housing.