Victorian home to be demolished...
...need for dementia care outweighs building
THE public benefit of extra dementia care was deemed to outweigh the preservation of a large Victorian house in Loughborough as councillors passed an application for its demolition.
Charnwood borough councillors discussed the proposal from Loughborough’s Abbeyfield Society charity at its latest planning committee meeting just before Christmas.
The charity was seeking permission to demolish a house on Ashby Road in order to build a new complex to cater for people with dementia.
The borough planning officers had recommended that the proposal be refused as the home, Ingleside, 190 Ashby Road was in a conservation area and although it wasn’t listed, was identified as being a heritage asset.
At the meeting councillors heard from officers that there was a “clear need for further residential care facilities for sufferers of conditions such as dementia within the borough.”
The planning officers felt that the need was not considered to outweigh the loss of the house and the overall impact the demolition would have on the conservation area.
However at the meeting
Ruth Johnson, chair of Abbeyfield Society that if the plan wasn’t passed there was a danger that the charity’s other town facility could close.
She said that the charity been in operation since the 1960s offering sheltered housing across the town.
She told the meeting: “We were bequeathed Ingleside our property in Ashby Road in the late 1970s and it became a nine-bedded sheltered house and in the garden was built our residential home which opens on to Westfield Drive and provides 31 residential beds specialising in high quality dementia care
She added that there was a significant need for dementia care: “Thirtyone residential beds are too small to be viable and we are losing money.
“The new private sector homes we are seeing are at least 60 beds plus. If we get planning permission we would have an extra 33 beds which would enable us to provide our services in the heart of Loughborough.
“If we don’t get planning permission there are big financial decisions to be made, which could result in us closing our facilities with the loss of our current and future dementia beds in the centre of Loughborough.”
Loughborough borough councillor Coun Ted Parton also made an impassioned plea for the proposal: “The charity cannot cope with the huge dementia demands. It needs your help.”
He said that if the plan was rejected the charity may have to leave the site entirely to carry on financially and it could well end up as student or HMO accommodation.
“Imagine all the residents being taken out of that home and in its place two large HMOs which the inspector would most likely pass.
“All because we wished to retain a non-listed building that would require huge renovation.”
“You have the planning law on your side and the legality to do this morally right decision and I ask you - what will you choose?.”
During the debate Coun Sandie Forest said: “The present building could not really be converted. A new building is needed.”
She added that yews, the town was, going to lose a very fine building: “But the prospect of having a purpose-built dementia care home in Loughborough outweighs the harm.”
A vote to reject the application was defeated and then another vote, taken to grant the demolition was passed with 11 votes for and two against.