Vice-chair of under-fire Ashfield Council linked to children's care home plan

Coun Tom Hollis, of the ruling Ashfield Independents group, is also a former deputy leader of the authority, serving as number two to disgraced former leader, Coun Jason Zadrozny, who is due to be sentenced in court later this month after being found guilty of fraud and tax evasion.

In the wake of the Zadrozny scandal, the government ordered a review into the council after Ashfield MP Lee Anderson (Reform UK) and Sherwood Forest MP Michelle Welsh (Labour) raised concerns about its leadership and governance.

Coun Hollis, who represents the Huthwaite and Brierley ward, himself has criminal convictions and court penalties to his name, including back in 2022 when found guilty of harassment of neighbours and of careless driving, and was subsequently sacked from his post as deputy leader by Coun Zadrozny. He was appointed vice-chair in May this year.

Now the 33-year-old has been openly named as the agent for a planning application that has been submitted to the council for the children’s home at 102 Cordy Lane in Brinsley, which has already attracted opposition from neighbours.

The applicant is listed as Richard Purewal, of PKP Pension Fund, based in Nottingham, while Coun Hollis’s business, T&H Consulting Ltd, of Huthwaite, has prepared a statement to support the project.

The statement points out that the council has already granted permission for “the construction of a substantial, detached house” at the site.

The current scheme is for that house to operate as a care home for “no more than four children, aged five to 17, who would be cared for by a professional team of staff”.

The home would be “occupied and used in the manner of a traditional family house” and would operate continuously, 24 hours a day, throughout the year”.

Coun Hollis’s statement says: “Its purpose would be to provide children, who cannot live safely with their parents or other family carers, with a stable, nurturing and familiar domestic environment.

"Care staff would undertake the day-to-day parenting role, providing consistency, boundaries, encouragement and practical support.

"The applicant is promoting and developing the property, but would not personally provide regulated care.

"An appropriately experienced provider would be selected to operate the completed home and secure all the necessary registration and regulatory approvals before opening.”

The chosen provider would be responsible for assessing and placing the children, in conjunction with Nottinghamshire County Council, the statement goes on.

It would also have responsibility for recruiting, training and supervising staff, and for appointing a suitable manager of the home.

"Day-to-day life would be deliberately domestic,” the statement says. “Children would be encouraged to maintain appropriate contact with family and friends, and to take part in ordinary neighbourhood life.

"The anticipated staffing model is three to four members of staff during daytime periods and two staff overnight.

"The comings and goings would be typical of family life, such as journeys to and from school, shopping and recreational activities.”

Such “a carefully managed home would make a modest but meaningful contribution” to the need for more residential placements for children in care across the county.

However, the scheme has been criticised by neighbours on Cordy Lane, including Nicola Bowyer, who has posted her comments on the council’s website.

Nicola says: “Is this a joke? There are so many reasons why this should not go ahead in a busy residential area that has already had so many new housing developments."

She days the home would be a “high highways risk” because of inadequate access and the “intensification of a hazardous junction”.

And it would generate “noise and general disturbance entirely out of character with a quiet neighbourhood”.

Nicola claims the location is unsuitable and the home could “destroy the open character of the street scene and constitute a cramped over-development of a restrictive plot” of land.

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/