Round two in battle of Fulford

The residents

THE view out of the window is pleasant: green, open parkland dotted with mature trees. Further off, the backs of some of the large homes in Fulford Park are visible. It's just the kind of quiet, restful view you want if you're old and infirm and can't get out much.

Which is precisely what makes the frail, elderly woman, whose view this, is so cross. Because if the Royal Masonic Benevolent Institution gets its way at Connaught Court, there could soon be a road and a row of houses appearing where at the moment there are trees and grass.

The elderly woman doesn't want her name used. "We fear that if we grumble too much they will be nasty to us," she says. But she is happy to speak her mind.

"I've got such a nice outlook at the moment. And I'm going to get houses right down there" - she gestures out of the window - "right up to that tree, and a road in front. There will be no outlook at all. It's terrible."

Run by the RMBI for elderly masons and the relatives of masons, Connaught Court in Fulford is a superior care home. Residents are allowed to bring their own furniture in to make their rooms more homelike, they have their own library and hairdressing salon, and the home itself is surrounded by acres of mature parkland that once belonged to Fulford Park House.

No one has any complaints about the quality of care offered to the 100-or-so elderly residents who live here. "It is excellent," says Colin Campbell, a Professor of Sociology at York University whose 94-year-old mother Hilda has lived at Connaught Court for ten years. "My mother is very happy there."

What is causing concern is the future. The residents, many of them very old and vulnerable, had expected to be able to spend the rest of their days here in peace and quiet. So the RMBI's decision to seek planning permission to develop much of the land in which the home is set has left many of them confused and anxious.

So far, the RMBI has submitted only an outline application. No detailed plans have yet been formally drawn up. But an 'illustrative' scheme submitted along with the outline application includes four blocks of flats at the edge of the grounds where they overlook Fulford Ings; ten detached houses in the grounds bordering Fulford Park; and 11 three-story houses on the other side of the care home where the grounds border St Oswald's Road. Between the existing care home and Fulford Road itself, a new, 38-bed care home would also be built.

"We're going to be hemmed in!" says my elderly friend crossly, looking out of her window. "The RMBI are wonderful, and they are helping people all over England. But what about us? Why should they make us have to suffer? We'll have lost all our privacy. My children are all abroad and I've got nobody to stand up for me. If only I still had my own house. I'd go back there. But I've given it up."

It is not only the prospect of losing their privacy and their beautiful grounds that has upset residents. The thought of living in what will effectively be a building site is worrying too.

"If it gets passed, for the next two or three years we shall be in a state of complete hell as far as I'm concerned," said one 85-year-old man, who also did not want to be named. "We moved in here to end our days in peace and quiet, and all that will be gone for a burton."

Despite his praise for the excellent standard of care offered to his mother at the home, Professor Campbell shares that anger. So incensed is he at the "excessive and insensitive" proposals for Connaught Court that he has written to the RMBI to complain.

"I often take my mother outside in her wheelchair into the nice grounds," he says. "She's going to lose a good deal of that. She has a nice view out over the Ings towards Terrys. She's going to lose that - they plan to put blocks of flats there. And she's going to be living in a huge building site for a long time.

"She's not happy, but like many of the elderly residents in there, they almost seem resigned. They say 'I don't like it, but what can you do?'"

The protesters

THE Royal Masonic Benevolent Institution makes no bones about why it wants permission to develop the grounds of Connaught Court. It needs the money.

"Our trustees have a duty to manage the assets, and they have additional funding needs because the cost of care keeps rising," says Roger Friend, the charity's director of fund-raising and events. "We are in a situation now where we do not have the income to meet all the commitments for care that we have across the country."

Just how much the charity would be able to raise if the Connaught Court development were allowed to go ahead is unclear. It would very much depend, Mr Friend says, on what kind of development were to be approved.

He hopes, however, that it could be a "fairly substantial" sum. Part of that money, he says, would be invested back in Connaught Court itself - into the proposed new 38-bed care home, for example, and into enlarging the care home's existing unit for the elderly mentally frail.

But part of the money would certainly be spent on RMBI's other projects elsewhere in the country. "We're a national charity," Mr Friend points out.

The RMBI insists that it is a caring charity with the interests of the elderly people it looks after at heart. Mr Friend admits that there will be some disruption for the elderly residents of Connaught Court when and if development begins: but it will be kept to a minimum, he says, with work only being carried out in the daytime.

There will be "some changes in outlook", but many of the grounds and trees will be kept for the benefit of residents, he says. "It is not going to be a high density development." Certainly, he insists, there will be no question of any of the residents being allowed to suffer.

Whatever the reasons the RMBI has for wanting to develop Connaught Court, however, it has a problem. It has made itself deeply unpopular by the way it handled the felling of two 150-year-old copper beech trees at the home.

Whatever the truth about those trees - and whether they really needed to be cut down is still open to question in many people's minds - having the police step in to forcibly remove six protesters, including green councillor Andy D'Agorne and wheelchair user Belinda Nova, seemed heavy handed.

The anger locally still runs deep, and it is only going to fuel opposition to the redevelopment of Connaught Court.

That opposition is considerable. Labour MP John Grogan has warned developers to prepare for a "battle royal". Liberal Democrat ward councillor for Fulford, Keith Aspden, has pledged to speak out against the outline application when it comes before planners, probably early next year. And local pressure group the Fulford Friends is busy mobilising against the scheme.

Quite apart from the upset caused to the frail residents of Connaught Court, the proposals would "rip the heart out of Fulford", says Fulford Friends chairman David Wilkinson. It would cause traffic gridlock because of a proposed new junction on the already-busy A19 in the Fulford conservation area opposite St Oswald's Church, he says; cause the loss of beautiful and historic parkland right in the heart of Fulford; and bring extra traffic on quiet St Oswald's Road.

The Fulford Friends also believe it is crazy to build blocks of flats right on the edge of the flood plain where the grounds of Connaught Court meet Fulford ings.

The group is organising a petition, urging those opposed to the development to write to city planners, and has also set up a effective website setting out why it objects to the scheme.

Further action, including possibly a mass protest, is planned in the run-up to the planning meeting at which the application will be considered pledges David, who lives in Atcherley Close overlooking the grounds of Connaught Court.

"The community feeling is incredibly strong about this," he says. "We are determined to fight this scheme, for the sake of all of the local community and for generations to come. If this is lost, we can never get it back again."

To find out more about Fulford Friends visit the website at www.fulfordfriends.co.uk or call David Wilkinson on 01904 639582.

Updated: 10:30 Thursday, November 25, 2004