A HOUSING association has applied for planning permission for a unique scheme for single people or divorcees with children in Redditch.

Spa Housing Association wants to build nine two-bedroom flats on land off Mount Pleasant for people whose children are not in their custody but who have visits.

Redditch Councillor David Cartwright said the scheme, if approved, would be unique because most single people in social housing were given single-bedroom properties regardless of whether they had a child to stay.

But the project could be delayed because Spa Housing also wants to build a care scheme near the Alexandra Hospital in Woodrow on one of the proposed routes for the Studley bypass.

Because of a complicated arrangement, both schemes would need to be built together but the care scheme cannot go ahead until the by-pass issue is resolved.

The jury is still out on whether a bypass will ever be built after Warwickshire County Council claimed it needed definite sources of funding before it chose a route.

Spa Housing has also applied to build 12 one-bedroom flats on the same Mount Pleasant site which will eventually be managed by homeless charity Step Out Drop In.

Mr Cartwright, who manages Step Out Drop In, said the new flats would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds if planning permission was given.