Rejected care home would be like 'four-star hotel', developers tell planning appeal
A new 66-bed care home at the centre of a planning appeal would be “like a four-star hotel”, the company behind it has said.
Representatives from LNT Care Developments made the comments at an appeal hearing before planning inspector Michael Cryan, urging him to overturn Shropshire Council’s refusal of the scheme on the outskirts of Market Drayton.
However, officers from the council’s planning, conservation and environmental health departments said the authority’s decision should be upheld on the grounds that the site, at Sych Farm to the north of the bypass, was unsuitable for a care home and was allocated employment land.
They said future residents would be subject to unacceptable levels of noise from the Gingerbread Man pub next door, nearby industrial units and road traffic, and further argued that the farm buildings on site were heritage assets which should not be demolished.
Alistair Wood, planning and development manager at LNT, told the hearing that Adderley Parish Council supported plans and, in his belief, the application should have been decided by Shropshire Council’s northern planning committee.
However Philip Mullineux, development manager for the north of the county, said the parish council had not raised any material issues and the scheme was therefore decided by officers.
Planning policy officer Liam Cowden said that while the council was not against new care homes in principle, it would prefer to see them used only for specialist and end of life care, with older people instead supported to stay in their own homes as long as possible.
