Care home appeals against refusal to keep visitor cabin by North Somerset Council
The Weston-Super-Mare care home says the cabin helped them survive the pandemic with no Covid deaths
A care home in Weston-Super-Mare told to take down their visitor’s cabin, which helped them survive the pandemic with no Covid deaths, is appealing against the decision.
Stoneleigh Residential Care Home was refused retroactive planning permission for the wooden cabin by North Somerset Council in July and ordered to take it down.
Enforcement of the order was suspended due to an intervention by local councillor Mike Bell. The care home has installed plants around the cabin to screen it from view and have now lodged an appeal.
The cabin was installed without planning permission during Covid as a self-contained location for families to safely visit people at the care home. It contained a screen between residents and visitors, wipeable surfaces, and hand sanitiser.
As a result, Stoneleigh Care Home was able to keep visitations open during the pandemic while suffering no deaths from Covid-19.
Care home owner Tracy Troupe said: “I didn’t think at all about planning permission. I thought, what can we get that is safe …?”
She added: “It was getting colder and I needed something pretty quick.”
She added that North Somerset Council provided them with a grant for the purchase of the cabin, which cost around £9,000.
In their statement for the appeal, a Stoneleigh spokesperson said: “The owners of the nursing home put in stringent cleaning processes and procedures as soon as the cabin was installed.
“This enabled family members to visit residents in a safe and secure location whilst at the same time ensuring safety from Covid transmission.
“The measures put in place not only provided to be successful, they resulted in zero Covid deaths for the nursing home.”
They added: “Should planning not be granted, North Somerset will have given approximately £9000 to provide the Cabin and then, essentially, take that away from the Nursing Home – that would be a complete waste of funds at a time when costs are rising exponentially.”
Although visitors are now allowed inside the home again, Ms Troupe said that she was encouraging people to continue to use the cabin due to the risks of other infections, and that some families were keen to as it gave care home residents a change of scenery.
151 people have signed a petition calling for the cabin to stay.
One resident wrote an open letter, saying: “I can’t understand why this little cabin is causing problems. It’s not visible from the road outside and is nicely decorated and has nice trees planted round it. Tracy, the owner of this home, has done all in her power to make things nice for all residents.”
They added: “We are all residents in our 85 to 95 age group and it’s not a lot to ask for.”
Rejecting the original application, a council officer said: “The benefit of the outbuilding, which has allowed family visits to continue through the COVID pandemic, is understood, but this must be balanced against the harm to the conservation area. It is considered that the harm, in this case, outweighs the benefit and thus, planning permission for the retention of the harmful structure should not be granted, as less harmful alternatives could be explored.”
Ms Troupe has looked at what temporary structures could replace it. She said: “I am looking at other options that we could take down but that’s not a warm cosy environment that I could take my residents into.”