PLANS to bulldoze an industrial building and construct a 66-bed care home in Cheshire West have been knocked back over fears it would be ‘overbearing and oppressive’.
LNT Care Developments had submitted an application to flatten a building used by Contour Showers on Siddorn Street, Winsford - which is set to move to new premises - to make way for a three-storey care home.
The site is 100m north of Winsford High Street and surrounded by residential properties, with access from Siddorn Street and Bakers Lane. The proposed care home would have been 3,235 sq m in size with shared lounge/dining room, café/bar, garden room, TV/cinema room, shop, clinic and hair salon.
Contour Showers uses the site as an assembly plant for shower appliances which are then sold from the premises. But the firm is relocating to a purpose-built facility in Middlewich in March, which will leave the current site vacant.
A planning officers' report said Contour Showers currently employ 40 people, and the proposed care home would increase employment opportunities by 50 per cent - with a prospective 60 permanent jobs. Leeds-based LNT Care Developments said it has built 200 care homes around the country.
Several neighbouring residents objected to the development, raising concerns that the building would overlook gardens and impact on their privacy.
Now Cheshire West and Chester planning officers have rejected the scheme over concerns the care home's scale and design would ‘not respect the character’ of the surrounding area.
Their decision said: "The scale, design and layout of the development, without an active street frontage, would appear as a dominant and incongruous feature within its surroundings and would not contribute positively to the character of the area.
"It would cause significant adverse impacts on neighbouring residential amenity by virtue of overshadowing, overlooking and unacceptable loss of privacy."
The officers' report concluded: "The local planning authority considers that in this instance the scale of amendment necessary to achieve an acceptable outcome would result in a significantly different development and as such would be outside the scope of this application.
"It has therefore not been possible to work with the applicant in a positive and proactive way to secure a development that will improve the economic, social and environmental conditions of the area."
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