Concerns over city care home proposal Planners against site which includes student flats

Plans for a care home and student accommodation on one of Stirling’s most prominent city centre sites come before councillors on Tuesday.

Stirling Council planners are recommending refusal of the application by Caledon/tdl, Northcare (Scotland) and Scape Homes for the development on the former Orchard House Hospital site off Back O’hill Road.

Among their concerns are the scale, height and density of the student development and the impact on trees both within and outwith the site.

They also say it fails to provide an adequate level of off-street parking.

The student accommodation would feature a range of cluster and studio apartments in two to four storey blocks. Two of the blocks would be located along the front of the site at Union Street and Lower Bridge Street, whilst the third block would sit between the two.

The proposals also include ground floor communal spaces and outside space, pedestrian links and landscaping.

A cafe, facing onto Union Street, is also planned.

The three and a half storey care home meanwhile is proposed with outside amenity spaces and car parking accessed via Back O’hill Road.

The building would be predominantly three and a half storeys dropping to three storey next to the existing health building/gp surgery.

While shrubs and trees would be planted on both the student accommodation and care home site, on the northern edges of the development a number of existing trees would be lost.

While the developers suggest the student accommodation could be car-free and that the proximity of public transport and cycling links would mean no necessity for dedicated parking for students.

Council roads officials are objecting to the application saying the city’s CPZ (controlled parking zone) does not currently cover the site and a restricted parking and tenancy agreement would not cover surroundings streets. They have calculated that 50 parking spaces would be needed on the site to satisfy their requirements.

Thirteen individual representations have also been received citing concerns including impact on biodiversity and European Protected Species, scale, adverse impact on local amenity and exacerbation of parking problems, impact on GP practices, and loss of open space and trees.

In their report due before the council’s planning panel on Tuesday, council planners say: “The planning authority accepts that with appropriate mitigation in place, the potential impacts of the care home development on the environment can be appropriately mitigated through careful use of materials and planting proposals.

The scale of build on site B can be supported and is broadly similar to the recent appeal decision.

“However, the scale and massing of the student accommodation is considered harmful and cannot be mitigated.

“It is not accepted that a building of three to four storeys can be accommodated on this site.

“Overall, it is considered that the density and scale of the proposed building on Site A will result in a development that will offer a dominant transition between the city and Raploch.”

Previously, builders Mccarthy and Stone scrapped plans for a retirement homes complex and fast food outlets, next to Orchard House surgery in Union Street, at the start of 2019.

The council’s planning panel rejected plans for that proposal May 2018 despite a planners’ recommendation for conditional approval. Councillors decided the proposal constituted “gross over-development” of the site, represented a loss of valuable open space and was an inappropriate location for sheltered housing.

An appeal lodged by the developers with the Scottish Government’s Planning and Environment Appeals Division in an attempt to overturn the panel’s decision, however, was conditionally approved.