Plans submitted for 72-bed care home in York

Care home builder Torsion Care seek to build the home off Shipton Road on the site of a disused wheelchair centre, which would be demolished.

If approved, the development would be managed by Torsion Care’s sister business Burghley Care, which specialises in operating and running care homes.

The planning application to City of York Council says the scheme offers many benefits, including creating 70 jobs and helping fill a need for such care services.

Blue Beck House is an existing largely 3-storey building, which previously operated as the York Wheelchair Centre, and is accessed off Blue Beck Drive.

Torsion care seek to demolish this and replace it and a related outbuilding with a ‘state of the art’ care home. This would also be largely 3-storeys and constructed in two wings.

The existing building covers 1315m2, with a 97m2 outbuilding, which would be replaced by a 3789m2 building on the 0.6ha site. Parking would increased from 18 to 22 spaces.

Some 50 full-time and 20 part time jobs would be created, with staff working shifts to provide 24/7 cover, meaning around 14 staff will be on site at any time.

The application says the scheme would use gables and terraces to reduce the impact of the building.

It is also designed for dementia, control of covid and other factions and offers a choice of day care rooms.

En-suite bedrooms will be on all floors, along with clinic space on each. In addition, each floor would have communal facilities such as garden room, dining space, hair salon, lounges, café bistro, activity room, sports lounge and terrace space.

The application continued: “The high-quality internal design, access and range of facilities will provide future residents with a high standard of living.”

Furthermore, there would be landscaping and the new building provide a substantial ‘greening’ of the site with a 29% reduction in hardstanding and a 128% increase in soft landscaping within the site. This would improve biodiversity and wildlife habitats.

The application was also “in itself urban regeneration through the redevelopment of a brownfield site” and would not harm its Green Belt site, which is expected to lose such status in the new Local Plan for York. Initially, ‘repurposes’ Blue Beck House was considered but not found practical.

A new home would also meet a shortfall for older persons needing care, with their own en-suites, also reducing ‘bed-blocking’ in hospitals and helping the wider York housing market by its users releasing homes into it.

The application concluded there would be “significant economic, environmental and social benefits” from the scheme, which would far outweigh the limited harm from the loss of Blue Beck House, so planning approval should be granted.