Care home plan for church land to secure future
ACARE home could be built in the grounds of a Clarkston church as part of plans to serve the community “for generations to come”.
East Renfrewshire Council has received a planning application that requests permission to use “surplus” land at Greenbank Parish Church for a 58-bed residential care home.
The Eaglesham Road site, currently occupied by a church hall and caretaker’s house, would be sold to Morrison Community Care Ltd and construction firm CCG if planning consent is secured.
It is part of a wider project to “ensure future sustainability” of the church.
A second application for the redevelopment and extension of the church will be submitted at a later date. The application states: “Greenbank Parish Church Legacy Project has a clear vision to create a sustainable worshipping congregation serving the existing community for generations to come.”
In the care home, there will be “communities” of no more than 10 residents, each with a day room, dining area and quiet room.
The plans also include a hair salon, visitor café and cinema, which will also be open to the public.
“The benefit of this is that it will offer the residents added interaction with the wider community,” the plans state.
Greenbank church is a C listed building but the halls to the north are “of a significantly inferior quality”, the application adds. “These are no longer needed by the church.”
The Kirk Session of the congregation of Greenbank believes the “proposed development has the ability to create a unique and sustainable development with the community at its centre”.
It believes the nursing care home proposal is a “good fit” for the site.
The second phase, the redevelopment of the church, will be funded by contributions from members of the congregation and charitable funding groups.
Extra money will be made through the sale of a new detached villa on the land.
The plans state: “There is clear evidence of loneliness and social isolation across all age groups and abilities in the Clarkston community.
“However, the ability of the church to respond to these and other needs is significantly hampered by the limitation of the existing buildings.
“The church concluded that the time was right to create a suite of modern facilities, suitable for the next half century, rather than continue with incremental shortterm improvements to the existing buildings.”