More than 50 jobs to be created under care home plans

Plans have gone in for a new 66-bed care home in Shrewsbury as part of a major development in the town.

The site, to the north of Oteley Road, was subject to a previous planning application for a Marston’s pub and hotel which was refused by Shropshire Council last year.

Around 50 to 60 jobs are expected to be created at the care home, which will provide general residential and residential dementia care.

The application site forms part of the Shrewsbury South sustainable urban extension (SUE), which also includes around 900 new homes, community facilities and public open space.

If approved, it will be the second care home within the SUE, with building work already underway on an 80-bed facility, Oxbow Manor, expected to open next year.

As a result, Lands Improvement Holdings (LIH), which owns the land south of Oteley Road, has confirmed it intends to deviate from the SUE masterplan by building homes on a different site, next to Percy Thrower’s Garden Centre, which is allocated for a care home.

The new care home application and the proposals to deviate from the masterplan were both discussed by Shrewsbury Town Council at a planning meeting this week.

Members said the two-storey care home building was an improvement on the previous pub and hotel application, which was refused on the grounds of over development of the site.

The committee voted not to object to the application.

On the SUE masterplan deviation, deputy town clerk Amanda Spencer told councillors the landowner was intending to submit a planning application for the site next to the garden centre next month.

A letter to the town council from the landowner’s agent said: “The site was initially expected to deliver a care home and associated local centre uses.

“However, an 80-bed care home has now been approved elsewhere in the SUE which its operator, Care UK, indicates will open in early 2022.

“Local centre uses have also now been delivered as part of the redevelopment of the Percy Thrower’s Garden Centre.

“As such, there has been no market demand for these uses and LIH is, therefore, preparing a planning application to deliver 35 dwellings on the site.”

The letter added that the development would provide a road connection “that will enable the approved community centre within the SUE to be delivered at an earlier stage than envisaged by the outline planning permission”.

Ms Spencer said: “There is also the potential of additional CIL (community infrastructure levy) money, and we could specify in our response that this should be allocated to the community centre build fund of around £400,000.”

Mayor Julian Dean said: “My initial reaction is that this makes sense, given that the plan for a care home has come forward elsewhere.

“It also feels to me like this makes sense because we have got a reasonably good level of services in that part of town in terms of shopping.

“I don’t know what the access to health services and things like that are like, but if you consider it in terms of the ’15-minute neighbourhood’ concept then having homes here seems sustainable.”

The committee will discuss the plans again once a formal application has been submitted.

The planning applications will be decided by Shropshire Council.