Planning permission for children's home next door

££££££££££ say no more....

It may not even be a planning application but a certificate of lawfulness as a change classification. My local council doesn't inform neighbours of these as they do with planning applications.

Easy to say when a home for troubled teenagers isn't going to be next to your house...

We have 2 houses in our small road that are used as care homes. We were never given any details or information. The young person in each house had learning disabilities and we would see them when they went walking with support staff. One young man would be quite loud in the evenings but it was obvious he had special needs. One house appears empty now and the other has a family so not sure what's happening now.

It's a very lucrative venture if he can get it off the ground. The local authorities are desperate for safe, appropriate supervised and supported accommodation for troubled young people and will pay virtually anything to companies who can provide it. Young people are currently bring placed hundreds of miles away from their schools, friends and families due to lack of suitable placements and local authorities are having to put these troubled youngsters up in hotels which are not safe or supervised at all.

Try and approach it with an open mind.

You mention a corner plot. If your address and the other house are in different streets you might need to check that the Council acknowledge you as NDN.

I was in several different care homes as a teenager some where better managed then others. One I was in was particularly bad, police their every day fights, drugs, property damage. I was moved out of it at 15 as I was pregnant hanging out with older men and taking drugs and drinking alcohol on a daily basis. However I was in others that where fairly calm and had quite strict rules and although their was issues nothing different then you would expect from other kids/teens in your local area.

I wouldn't like this at all. The image some on here seem to have that it will be poor orphans who will be housed is likely very far off the mark.
DH worked at a children's home for a while. The kids were teens who had sadly had a very tough start in life, but the reason they were in the home was no foster carers would take them due to their behaviour.
On day 1 he was advised not to park his newish sporty car there as the kids would definitely try to steal it or damage it. He was told plenty of stories, and witnessed enough to believe what he heard, about extreme anti social behaviour by some of the kids.
I highly doubt anyone on here would really want this right next door, no matter how altruistic they are.

We had one of these a few doors down from our old house. The whole estate objected and it still went through.

However in our experience it was nothing but positive. The kids were fine, lovely kids actually. The workers were lovely and they did a lot for the whole community.

We were worried but it was a really positive thing in the end.

You do realise that many many children's homes only have one , or two, children? Gone are the days of Tracy Beaker homes where they have a dozen kids.

The children might well undertake criminal behaviour or take drugs. They are by default, very very damaged having come almost to the end of childhood without caring loving parents. It’s really sad. The ones near me do annoy me socially but they have had a devastating life and I have been lucky so who am I to pass judgement on their problems?

@Turningandturning YANBU and I’d recommend getting onto the council asap for proper information on what the application entails and also canvas local neighbours for their views including your local councillors.

We had a home for care leavers just around the corner and it wasn’t too bad but they weren’t allowed visitors inside so there was a lot of hanging around smoking weed and some very noisy music at times. I’d also agree about the risk of other ASB, police visits and disturbances.

boom there it is 😂 I am
so perceptive

Oh sorry just assumed you threw in the point about aid work to show how caring you were- to people far away in other countries 😉

I work with children and young people. Unfortunately some people see setting up a home as a way to make money. They have no experience of supporting children, some of whom have a lot of challenges. From your description I’d be worried the home owner does not have the skills to own and run a home. Managers don’t stay so you can’t rely on employing people to do it all. The home would have to apply to Ofsted. Maybe talk to them?

@Turningandturning if you aren't being informed of planning applications then the Council should be putting up a site notice outside the house. The regulations require one or the other so it might be worth contacting the Council to check what their procedures are.

It’s quite a nice extension of your aid work to support something like this!

we also have one, share a border with them but they’re not next door. The residents are very troubled older teenage boys, the police are there a lot. They caused problems with our property which I found quite easy to sort out because the home will be operated by a regulated company- you’re dealing with a professional organisation not some goon mad neighbours.

your neighbour will rent the property to care home business so it won’t be anything to do with him.

you are very unlikely to make an impact by protesting against the planning application. The one near us had 300 letters of objection and it made no difference- in fact,
the council went against their own planning policy and it made no difference- they are desperate for this type of accommodation.

It almost certainly wont end up being up to him who lives and works there anyway. A care agency/the council will rent if off him once permission is granted. Highly unlikely to be running it himself, even less likely to have much say over who lives in it.

In our area, children are moved into children's homes from the age of 9 or 10, often with NO additional needs, other than not having parents able to care for them - purely due to a shortage of foster homes.

The idea that only children with high needs are in children's homes is very outdated. Usually providers pick much larger, detached, rural homes if they're setting themselves up as specialist therapeutic homes, as they need the space for more staff and to be away from accessible public transport (to reduce likelihood of teens running away for example)

Childrens homes do need to be in residential areas though - where else do you think children should live? Business parks? Industrial estates?