Nelson Hospital Scheme Gets Go-Ahead

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New Local Care Centre Will Be Built

Plans for a Local Care Centre and care home to be built on the Nelson Hospital site in Merton Park have been given the go-ahead.

The plans are for:

• construction of a new two/three storey (5,600 square metre) local care centre (LCC) and new access route with 68 car parking spaces to the rear (26 for patients);
• construction of a new two/three storey assisted living care development (51 units) at the western end of the site, with associated communal facilities, dedicated vehicle access and 21 car parking spaces.

The main entrance of the LCC will look like this:

Local residents had expressed concerns about lack of parking and potential traffic problems when the plans were first unveiled in 2011.

But the plans were then amended earlier this year, the main changes being that the plan for The Rush was re-designed to to keep the existing vehicular circulation and parking spaces, and the pedestrian access through The Rush Island was realigned to give a more direct approach to the Main Entrance to the Health Centre.

Also the care home plans were modified with changes to the elevations and site layout, to give better internal arrangements for the residents.

However at the planning committee meeting on Thursday (September 6) there was some concern that the LCC centre and the MacCarthy & Stone care home were not being discussed as separate applications.

The committee heard that the plans had not been taken to Merton's Design Review Panel. The plans for the care home are pictured below.

A motion to defer the decision to give time for the care home to be reviewed by the Design Review Panel was lost on the chairman's casting vote. A second motion to reject the scheme was also defeated. So the application was granted.

A spokesman for the Merton Park Ward Residents' Association said afterwards: "When the MPWRA formally commented on the plans in March we expressed our support for the development of an LCC.

But we also said that the MacCarthy & Stone Care Home would be "a poor addition to the area", "looming and oppressive” and that "the style of the building is incongruent to the area". We hold to that view but we take some small consolation from the fact that all external materials will need to be passed by council officers. We shall continue to keep close to the project to press for the best possible choice of materials."

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September 7, 2012