Significant Care Development Approved in London Green Belt

In September 2015 Tetlow King Planning (TKP) helped  secure planning permission for Jewish Care for the redevelopment of an existing care home site in Stanmore, Harrow.

TKP acted as the agents on the application and helped to  instruct a team of consultants. The approved application consists of a purpose built care complex combining a 64 bed care home with 64 independent living units and extensive communal areas. The site, located in Harrow Council’s area, is within the Green Belt as well as falling between two Sites of Special Scientific Interest. The existing operational 72 bed care home site has many protected trees and also ecological value.

The site previously benefitted from an outline consent for a replacement 122 bed care home but this has expired and was not implemented. The new approval, as explained in the Committee report, represented a significant increase in floor area over the existing and also the expired application. The existing footprint is 2,156 sqm and the floor area 3,512 sqm. The previously approved care home had a footprint of 2,842 sqm and a floor area of 11,728 sqm. The new permission increases the existing floor area from 3,512 sqm to 15,635 sqm. This represents an increase in size of more than 4 times that of the existing building.

TKP was able to explain that a care home replacement, as per the previously approved application,  was not what is now required in modern care in a development of this scale. For this site a more responsive, sophisticated and flexible model that met the many varied needs of older people was appropriate.   Providing this more sophisticated model, with more relatively independent extra care units, meant more floor area. TKP was able to show that the increase in size was not only appropriate but also created “very special circumstances” when combined with the need and  the social benefits.

Following pre-application discussions with the Council and subsequent detailed design workshops with the client, the planning application was submitted in October 2014.  TKP helped manage a team of specialist consultants throughout the discussions with the Local Authority and the Greater London Authority. The team consisted of PTE Architects, LUC (Landscape and Ecology), Carterwood (Specialist Needs consultants), ADL Traffic (Highways), Blyth & Blyth (Sustainability), and Consibee (Civils).

Following the submission of further supporting information to address the specialist nature of the development and the lack of alternative options the application was reported to the Council’s planning committee with a positive officer recommendation and subsequently approved by elected members.

This approval, alongside our work on a previous approval of a replacement care site at  Sunninghill (http://lynwoodvillage.co.uk/) for the BEN – Motor and Allied Trades Benevolent Fund, represents two of the largest approvals for care development in Green Belt  in recent times.

This successful application follows on from recent planning application successes with care development at Keynsham (Freeman Retirement Living)  Isle of Wight (Somerset Care), Bristol (The Cote Charity) and Upton near Southampton (Grove Care part of LifeCare Residences). The Upton one was particularly pleasing involving as it did the addition of a new care home to an existing care apartment site, located in the open countryside, partly using the justification of the increasing care needs of the resident populations at the site.

For any assistance with care developments please contact John Sneddon (0117 9561916) or Iain Warner (01732 870988).