A DERELICT Grade-II listed building on Hartlepool’s Headland is to be converted into affordable housing in a £4.65m regeneration programme.

Housing Hartlepool, a housing association, is spearheading the project to rescue the Friarage Manor House and funding has also come form the Government-supported Homes and Communities Agency.

The building will be turned into four apartments, with another 34 new-build houses and apartments planned for the surrounding area. The majority of the homes will be for older people.

Work on the development, by Galliford Try Partnerships North East, has begun and is expected to be completed by May 2016. Non-financial support has come from Hartlepool Borough Council and The Henry Smiths Educational and Non-Educational Trusts.

The regeneration project has also attracted interest from the Heritage Skills Apprenticeship Project, which is an initiative aimed at improving access to qualified conservation workers. The scheme offers the chance for an apprentice to gain experience in specialist historic building renovation.

The Manor House is on the site of a former Franciscan Friarage established in around 1240. Later it became a wing of the Friarage Hospital, which was demolished in 1987. Since then the building has been unused and has been slowly deteriorating.

Martin Hawthorne, Director of Development and Regeneration for Thirteen, the parent company of Housing Hartlepool, said: "It has so much potential and it’s great to finally have in place a long-term use for the building and surrounding land."