A 70-bed care home is to be built on the site of a former Devon school despite locals warning that it will be ‘massive’, ‘unsustainable’ and a burden on under-pressure health services.
“Good idea, wrong place,” Honiton town councillor Robert Fowles told a meeting of the East Devon District council planning committee.
The home, which Cllr Fowles said could be charging residents up to £90,000 a year for care, will be built on the site of the former Mill Water School in the town by London-based Frontier Estates.
The school closed in 2015 and has since moved to a new home at Bicton. The school buildings have been demolished, and the site has been earmarked in local plan documents for 30 new homes.
Members were told that as the site had been developed before, the proposal was acceptable in principle. There is a need in the area for care accommodation, which could be addressed by a modern, purpose-built facility.
Local objections to increased traffic, which one comment described as ‘havoc’, were not considered to be severe or ‘demonstrably harmful’ according to an officer’s report.
One nearby resident pointed out that the 11-metre-high care home would be ‘massive’, and the facility would not serve the needs of the local community. It would, she said, exacerbate the housing shortage and deprive local families of social housing while at the same time putting pressure on local health services.
In a statement, however, the developers said it would deliver a ‘modern, purpose-built care home operating to the highest standards’. It would address a genuine and urgent local need, they added.
Cllr Ian Barlow (Ind, Sidmouth Town) told the committee: “We don’t like change on our doorsteps, but we need to look at the bigger picture and say that we do need care homes in our area.”
The plan was approved with a number of conditions including a noise impact assessment to be carried out on the new care home’s heat pumps.
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