Advice please- neighbour’s planning application

[Hoppyhops]

Hello, I’m looking for some advice.
I’ve just had a letter from another neighbour who has been contacted by the council to say that the house next to them has received a planning application to be changed from a 5 bedroom house to an 8 bedroom residential care home.

There is no further information about who the care home is for (elderly, vulnerable adult, etc.) as the council has not received that information and won’t until 1 week before any final objections can be made.

We back onto the property concerned, with a lane running from the front of ours to the front of the property. The property is on a main road/bus and ambulance route so there are double yellow lines and a small drive. I’m concerned people will park in front of our houses and use the lane - which would be fine- but there is not a lot of parking for our street as it currently stands anyway.
I’m also concerned about the fact they do not even know who is going into the property and potentially how that will affect the local area.

The council have left an email address for ’comments’ saying:

’Any comments you may wish to make should be emailed to ‘Xxxxx’ or submitted in writing to Neighbourhood Services within 21 days of this notice. Your letter will be acknowledged but further correspondence will not be entered into.’

So, does this mean they won’t answer any of my questions? How do I word an email to object to this until we know more? Any advice on going about finding out more/ what we should do here?

Thank you

Just did a bit more digging and it looks as though the company applying for planning permission run residential care homes for adults with autism and mental health needs. Anyone have any experience of living next to a facility like this?

You should be able to ring the planning officer for the case and have a chat.
I wouldn’t have a problem with a care home, whoever was being cared for. They very often have their own parking so that is something you could ask about if you are concerned about the impact.

Thanks, I will ring tomorrow to ask some more questions. The company also run drug rehabilitation care homes which I don’t object to but I would like to know more about the type of facility it is going to be.

There is a small drive for about 3 cars and no room to add more parking. I’m not sure where anybody else would park if they were visiting/ working there.

I would do a bit more research on the homes that the company already have. And talk to a planning officer about the type of residents that are likely to have. Also think about the impact of staff, deliveries etc. Shift changes are usually early morning/early evening. We have one in the neighbouring village, and the main issue when it set up was the traffic coming and going.

Thanks @LizzieBennett73 - I didn’t consider deliveries and actual traffic coming and going so I’ll add it to my list of questions.

I live directly opposite one of these facilities. Never had any issues, it's actually really nice seeing them go out for walks with their family or with other residents, when its their birthday etc, the majority always wave and say hello.

As per a pp, never actually noticed any deliveries as such, nor been bothered with late/early starts noise-wise. 8 bed means 7 residents and one overnight staff room I assume. Probably also 2 residents to 1 staff so there would be your three parking spaces plus one who will need to park elsewhere.

@Whatevershallidowithmylife That’s really lovely to hear - thanks so much for replying.

Hi OP, I have a bit of experience in this area. Firstly, does the terminology definitely state residential home? Rather than any other sort of care facility or scheme? Also does it state for children or adults? Im guessing adults as that seems to be assumed. In my region, and I suspect nationally, an 8 bedded home would not be for older people, it would almost certainly be for Learning Disability. Care homes for the elderly are much bigger whereas as those for the LD community are around this size. If its a res home it will have staff on site 24/7 so expect cars coming and going, perhaps a minibus, and some residents may even have a motability car.

Sorry, Ive just read that about drug rehab schemes in the same group. Look on the CQC website for the provider and see what their inspections say for other homes. Drop me a PM if needed.

Reading more into this, new developments of res care homes for LD/MH/Autism arent common nowadays as the agenda is to provide less restrictive options than res care (i.e. their own tenancies with domiciliary care going in), so I would guess that the residents will be high need, meaning high staff levels. And in res care there wont be a bedroom for staff as staff will be awake 24/7, so it's likely to be 8 residents bedrooms. I'd expect its quite a big development as these sorts of buildings would usually have a good sized kitchen, at least a couple of reception rooms and a dining area. Plus an office for staff. The name of the care provider may reveal all.

@TwinCheeks Thanks so much. Great advice about inspection reports - I’ve started saving some to read tomorrow. It seems the company has care home facilities across the UK and none for elderly people so likely to be for vulnerable adults, though I’m not sure what specifically.

It’s not a huge property- just a reasonably big house with a normal sized drive in the middle of a residential area, which is why I think parking is going to be an issue. They also had plans to add a single story extension so they will be making the property slightly bigger.

@TwinCheeks and yes it definitely states residential care home

No probs, it seems your biggest issue is parking. TBH the PP just made a wild guess at 1 staff to 2 residents. It could range from that to 2 staff per resident, you really don't know but I imagine it will be higher dependency with it being MH/Autism in residential care. That said, I doubt you have any real grounds for objection on parking as the planner wont likely know the impact of the parking and the provider will downplay it. It will likely take time to "fill up" by which I mean there may be a couple of residents lined up but to fill all 8 beds will take a while so you can expect parking levels to rise over time.
Other than that, noise may be a factor, and privacy depending on the extensions required and new windows. But again its all likely to go ahead with the planning stage just a formality. I'm more just trying to prepare you for what might be coming.