Decision on future of derelict Preston care home that's 'not safe to enter'
A derelict former nursing home in the Preston countryside is to be demolished and replaced with a new detached house.
Plans for the self-build property – on the site of what was Grimsargh House, off Preston Road – have been given the go-ahead by Preston City Council.
It comes four months after the authority also approved the development of four other dwellings in the grounds of the disused home, which opened back in the 1980s before closing down in 2017 after being rated “inadequate” by the Care Quality Commission.
In the years since, the premises have fallen into a state of disrepair, having been repossessed – and are now deemed unsafe to enter.
The number of bedrooms in the replacement property has not been specified, but J & J Holden Homes Limited – the firm behind both of the schemes on the site – says it will be “substantially smaller” than the nursing home and “of an appropriate scale to properties on similar sites in the immediate vicinity”.
The new house will be a part two-storey, part single-storey design, constructed in an L-shape.
In approving the application, town hall planning officers acknowledged that the designation of the site as an area of “open countryside” would usually restrict development. However, they recognised that it was a previously-developed “brownfield” plot and that it would be sitting within a cluster of other buildings.
The authority concluded that the plans were “acceptable and would not have any unacceptable adverse impacts upon the openness of the countryside”.
The properties given the green light for the grounds of the home earlier this year were approved during a brief period when the city council was unable to demonstrate that it had a five-year supply of land available to meet its minimum new housing targets, as required by national planning rules.
That put it in a position whereby it was obliged to permit development that was contrary to local planning policy – provided that the benefits of bridging the housing land shortfall were not “significantly” outweighed by any disadvantages. The location was acknowledged to lie in between another completed residential development and land on which plans for 48 bungalows and a new care home had already been approved
The houses in the grounds will be made up of two five-bedroomed properties, with integral double garages, and a pair of four-bed homes, with detached single garages, to be laid out around “an informal courtyard setting”.