A care home with 96 beds for elderly people who are disabled or living with dementia can be built on a garden centre’s car park, councillors have decided.
At one stage during a meeting yesterday (18/2) it looked as if Milton Keynes councillors were lining up to throw out the Hampton Healthcare plan for Woburn Sands Emporium, in Wavendon.
The plan for the Newport Road site was put before the development control committee because the area is classified as being in the open countryside.
But the debate changed when a substitute member of the committee pointed out that there is a drastic shortage of care home beds in Milton Keynes.
Cllr Andy Reilly (Lib Dem, Shenley Brook End) said: “I’m going to strike a different note.
“We are over 200 bed spaces behind where we should be and that is a strong and compelling argument.
“It’s not green open space, it’s a car park.”
The committee was provided with statistics that showed MK to be more than 300 care home beds short of where it needs to be by 2025.
This is at a time when the over 65 age population is due to increase by 77 per cent by 2030, and 140 per cent for the over 90s.
“From 2017 to 2030 the number of people in Milton Keynes with dementia will have doubled to over 4,000,” said the background report.
Leading arguments against was Cllr Martin Petchey (Lab, Stantonbury), who said putting elderly people on a car park at the edge of Wavendon would put them “out of sight, out of mind.”
“If the only human activity is people taking plant bedding in trolleys to their car boot, it really is not very stimulating.”
Cllr John Bint (Cons, Broughton) compared the size of the three and a half storey care home with the huge warehouse in Blakelands.
In terms of being accessible he scored it as “nine out of 10 for dreadful, one out of 10 for plausible.”
Cllr Paul Trendall (Lib Dem, Campbell Park & Old Woughton) said: “As I stare into my crystal ball and the haze clears I see that in one or two years time the retail unit being unviable and us all sitting here again looking at a planning application for something to be built on the site of the now closed retail unit.”
He said he was leaning to opposing the application, but after hearing his Lib Dem colleague he changed his mind.
And Cllr Bint said he had welcomed the debate adding he was closer to “sitting on that fence than I was before.”
Cllr James Lancaster (Con, Tattenhoe) admitted to being in two minds.
“I was sitting on the fence at the beginning,” he said. “During the debate I have swung both ways.”
Councillors approved the plan by six votes to one vote against and three abstentions.
It will however be subject to the council and the developer coming to an agreement over contributions to local infrastructure.
The council has drawn up a £140,688 bill for section 106 contributions, including £59,320 for health.
