Second chance for care home plan

OPERATORS of a Warrington care home are to get a second chance to convince planning bosses that their controversial plans to build a 30-bed dementia care unit on Green Belt land should go ahead..
Abbotsfield Care Ltd, who run the 60-bed Three Elms care home in Station Road, Penketh will put their proposals to the borough council’s development management committee.
Councillors have visited the site but are concerned about the number of parking spaces proposes for the unit, which would be built next to the existing care home.
They deferred a decision in January to give the company time to revise their parking proposals.
The new plan provides 39 parking spaces compared with the original submission of 28 – but planning officers are still recommending it be refused.
They say the plan represents inappropriate development in the Green Belt.
Nearly 100 objections have been received and there is also opposition from local borough councillors, Penketh Parish Council and Warrington South MP David Mowat.
But more than 200 people have made representations supporting the scheme, or raising no objections.
The development would be an L-shaped, two-storey hipped roof block to the west of the existing care home immediately south of the junction of Station Road and Tannery Lane.
Penketh Parish Council has objected on the grounds of highways safety, Green Belt, ecology, overdevelopment of the site and lack of adequate open space
Similar objections come from local councillors Linda Dirir and David Keane while the MP expresses concern about inappropriate development in the Green Belt.
Supporters of the scheme – who include staff, residents and relatives of residents of Three Elms – claim the existing home requires the extension to be able to continue to offer the care it provides.
They say it would enable continuity of care for existing residents when extra care was needed.
The development would offer 30 long term jobs and the design and landscaping would be sympathetic to the existing building.