Hastings councillors have green lit plans for a major care home development.
On Wednesday (October 4), Hastings Borough Council’s planning committee approved proposals to build an 80-bedroom care home in Chapel Park Road.
The site was formerly occupied by the Dane Court Nursing Home, but has been vacant and boarded since the building was cleared from the land in 2009.
Several replacement proposals have been approved since the site was cleared. While planning officers said this lent weight in favour of approval, the site’s history appeared to be a source of frustration for some committee members.
Cllr Matthew Beaver (Con) said:
“Cllr [Alan] Roberts and I have been on this committee for numerous years and have probably seen this site come before us numerous times. It’s come before us, it’s gone to planning permission and we’ve said ‘yay, that’s brilliant build it’ and then nothing has happened.
“It passes the date and comes back a few years later and we all go through this process again, I think [since] 2009 or something. That’s 14 years ago.
“I’m just crossing fingers that this isn’t just a reiteration of that and we’ll agree it and in three or five years time we’re still looking at this site again.”
The most recent previous planning permission — to build a 90-bed care home on the same site — had expired without construction beginning. That scheme, granted in 2017, itself followed the expiry of an earlier planning permission granted in 2007.
These latest proposals are similar to what has previously been approved, but includes a smaller number of larger bedrooms, reflecting more up-to-date space standards.
While approved, the size and design of the proposed building had prompted concerns from several residents, who argued the scheme would overlook neighbours and harm the character and appearance of the surrounding area.
Objectors included ward councillor Amanda Jobson (Green). In a written statement submitted ahead of the meeting, she said: “Having looked over this planning application I am concerned of the design of this plentiful building, humongous in size, [is] out of keeping with the area.”
Concerns had also been raised about the potential ecological harms of the development, as the site has become highly overgrown and also become home to a badger sett since being cleared.
The badgers, a protected species, would be migrated to a new artificial sett as part of the development. This process is not covered by planning legislation, with developers needing to go through a separate process with Natural England.
In approving the scheme, however, councillors imposed an additional condition requiring the development to include ‘swift bricks’, in other words bricks on the building which include openings for swifts to make nests.
For further information on the proposals see application reference HS/FA/22/00409 on the Hastings Borough Council website.
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