Plans for new 84-bedroom care home on edge of Leominster

Details have emerged of a planned new 84-bedroom care home for the elderly on the edge of a North Herefordshire town.

Müller Property Group has submitted an outline planning application to build the three-storey home at Barson’s Cross, the junction of the A44 and B4360 (Baron’s Cross Road and Monklands Road) west of Leominster.

Its application says the site “offers the opportunity to create a statement building of a larger scale on an important node to the town of Leominster”.

It will be “a state-of-the-art home for residents”, with assistive technology and other adaptations to meet specialist needs, it says. All rooms would be en-suite, and those on the ground floor would have their own external door and private patio.

A commissioned report with the application explains how the design responds to the outbreak of Covid-19 and other infectious diseases which, it says have led to “a long overdue reconsideration as to whether twin bedrooms are appropriate no only for privacy reasons, but also, now, viral control”.

The report also points to the impact on residents’ mental health of small bedrooms, and describes communal bath and shower rooms as “a cross-infection nightmare”.

The new building would also incorporate several sustainability features, and “no fossil fuels will be provided to it”, the application explains.

Road access would be from the north rather than directly off the junction as at present. There would be extensive landscaping around it, though details of this have yet to be submitted.

The two-thirds-of-a-hectare site is currently home to a long-standing haulage business, Conod’s of Leominster, whose buildings would be demolished.

When complete it would be operated by Oculus Supported Living.

Comments on the application, numbered 232978, can be made until November 9.