Refusal of 58-bed care home overturned on appeal

A Maidenhead care home that the Royal Borough refused because of highways concerns and scepticism over the local need has been granted permission on appeal.

Boutique Care Homes wants to build a series of specialist dementia bedrooms at what is currently Lawnfield House in Westmorland Road.

The three-storey care home on this 4,000sqm site would have replaced the existing six-bedroom house, former stables and coach house.

Later revisions reduced the scale of the building, the number of beds (from 70 to 58) and the total amount of parking available.

To make its case, Boutique Care Homes drew attention to the rising number of dementia patients, hence the need for this residential home.

But in March, the Royal Borough’s cabinet member for adult services, Cllr Catherine del Campo, said it was ‘misleading’ to suggest the Borough needs to build more accommodation to meet future need.

Rather, the authority had an oversupply of 250 nursing bed spaces to meet 2035 need, she said.

An oversupply will attract more people from outside the borough – which could be bad news for the council’s finances, Cllr del Campo stressed.

When care home residents run out of money, it falls to the borough to pick up the bill, regardless of where they lived before entering care.

Following a complex debate, councillors on Maidenhead's development management committee voted to turn the scheme down – going against officer recommendations.

One particular point of disagreement between officers and councillors was regarding parking and car trips to and from the site.

Councillors believed the estimation of the number of people arriving by car was unrealistically low.

Appeal

Despite these concerns, when Boutique Care Homes launched an appeal, the Royal Borough told the Planning Inspectorate it is ‘no longer pursuing any of the reasons for refusal’.

Simply put, the council stepped back from defending its decision.

But the appeal carried on anyway, because there were several third-party objections that needed to be thrashed out.

On parking, the inspector P Burley noted that the council only issues one or two permits per property – reduced if off-street parking is available – and that care home staff would not be eligible.

“Given the likely staffing and visitor numbers, and typical shift and visiting times, even if some parties did seek to park on-street outside of the restricted hours, I consider it unlikely that this would have a significant harmful effect,” concluded Mr Burley.

But he did think extra conditions needed to be placed on the planning approval to protect the highway safety.

This includes to ‘prevent the installation of gates’ and ensure there is a turning area, as well as arrangements for parking allocation.

Addressing the question of the need for a care home in the Borough, Mr Burley wrote: “Whilst ... there are sufficient [residential care] bedspaces in the borough in the short term, a number of these do not include wet room / en suite facilities for each resident [which are offered by this scheme].”

Moreover, Boutique Care Homes had identified local care homes ‘where the quality of accommodation was a factor in their closure’.

“Thus... the appeal scheme could help to replace dated or sub-standard accommodation elsewhere,” wrote Mr Burley.