Plans for new Surrey care home approved
Plans to demolish an office block to make way for a 70-bed care home have been given the green light with the developer forking out over £45k to the NHS. Consort House in Weybridge has been earmarked to provide a specialist nursing care home with a floor dedicated to dementia patients.
Members of Elmbridge Borough Council have approved for the empty office building on Princes Road to be knocked down and redeveloped. Proposals put forward by Harman will see the former 0.28 hectare office building demolished and replaced with a 70-bed care home with dementia friendly bedrooms, communal areas and memory lounges.
Planning documents state the proposed care home will cater for high dependency patients with health needs, rather than merely a residential home for older people. Data from Surrey County Council show the demand for specialised care beds in Elmbridge could hit almost 100 beds in the next five years, and then jump to 155 by 2035.
Planning documents read: “Opening in early 2027, it is strategically timed to reach operational maturity just as the demand peaks, ensuring it can effectively serve the community and alleviate pressure on local health services.”
A financial contribution over £45k to the NHS was agreed by councillors and the developer to support the local health infrastructure. Local care board, Surrey Heartlands, highlighted the 70-bed care home of elderly patients could place higher stresses on GP surgeries which the financial contribution would help mitigate.
Despite concerns about parking and whether there will be enough demand to fill care beds, councillors voted for the care home to go ahead at a planning meeting on February 4.
Parking was flagged as the major issue for neighbours, with one person claiming it would “result in a loss of quality of life due to parking stress”. Residents feared that visitors to the care home and staff would overspill into the surrounding roads where there is already short supply of space.
Only 28 car spaces are proposed for the development with between 25-30 staff on duty at any one time. But independent parking surveys outline there are 64 parking spaces within 500m walking distance from the site. Councillors also raised that care workers, many living outside Weybridge, are likely to use public transport to get to work.
Councillor Judy Sarsby (Liberal Democrats/ Weybridge Riverside) questioned what made this new care home different from the previous two care homes nearby which shut down in the last couple of years.
Mr Bond, the applicant’s agent, argued that the former care homes may have “included somewhat dated facilities” whereas the proposed development would be “modern and bespoke that will meet today’s needs in a 21st century context”. He detailed that each of the care home rooms will be a certain size, without any steps and will have an en-suite wet room.