New lease of life on horizon for boarded-up former care home in Sutton
A prominent building in Sutton that used to be a care home, but is now boarded up and fenced off, could soon be brought back to life.
The privately-owned Shires Care Centre, at The Oval, housed up to 42 residents in need of personal care until it closed its doors in 2018 when under a cloud after a sub-standard inspection report.
The building has been vacant ever since and is fast deteriorating into a sorry eyesore. But now a plan has surfaced for it to not only open again as a care home but also for the building to be extended from two storeys to three.
The revived home would comprise a total of 69 bedrooms (55 singles and 14 doubles) and accommodate a maximum of 83 elderly residents, including people with dementia. It would create 37 full-time jobs.
As part of the scheme, a planning application has been submitted to Ashfield District Council for the extension, as well as two further extensions on the ground floor to create an improved rear entrance and enlarged kitchen and store room.
The plans also include the creation of a sensory garden in the former courtyard area at the back, to be used by residents, and the planting of three trees.
Planning papers say: “The application is to bring back this vacant structure into use for much-needed care home facilities within the existing community.
"The extensions would reconfigure the existing building, and the vision is for a modern facility that can respond to the current demand for residential care in the local area.”
Under its former guise, The Shires was dealt a hammer-blow in April 2016 when inspectors from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) uncovered five breaches of the Health and Social Care Act.
When they returned six months later, changes for the better had been made, but the home was still slapped with a ‘Requires Improvement’ rating, both overall and in all bar one individual category.
After it closed in 2018, the building was sold for £752,000, according to The Move Market website. But it is now valued at £1.24 million.
The man behind the revival proposal is 52-year-old businessman Krishna Singh, a director the real-estate business Aran Krishna Ltd, based in North Purley, London.
Mr Singh has hired as his agent the successful Tibshelf-based company, Parker Liddle Architecture, which has compiled a planning statement to go with the application.
The statement says the extensions would “blend in well with the existing building”, which was located “within a mixed commercial and residential area, with a communal park at the back”.
It stresses that “the additional storey would have minimal impact on neighbouring properties, the nearest of which was at least 23 metres away”.
Access would be from The Oval, via a private drive, and with regard to parking, there would be six spaces for cars, seven for cycles and one disabled bay.
The statement also provides full details of the proposed staffing arrangements at the home. There would be round-the-clock coverage, including nine care staff on duty at night and a duty manager on call at all times.
A maximum of 15 visitors would be allowed per day, including family and friends, and healthcare and social services professionals.
All deliveries and maintenance operations would be scheduled and managed by the care home team and “carried out with minimal inconvenience to residents”.
The council’s planning officers are currently considering the plan and have set a deadline date of Monday, February 2 for a decision or recommendation.
However, the applicant has already received a boost because the council’s environmental health department has raised no objections.
An email from an officer says: “I have no significant concern that the proposal would cause significant environmental impact (noise, odour and contaminated land issues) to neighbouring properties.”
THE details of many planning applications can be found in public notices advertised by local and regional newspapers. To catch up on all the latest public notices, go to https://publicnoticeportal.uk/