Appeal over children’s residential home after Wolverhampton council says it’s not needed
A plan to open a children’s residential home that has been rejected twice by a council could still go ahead.
City of Wolverhampton Council has twice rejected planning applications to convert a six-bed home in Codsall Road, Wolverhampton, into a residential home for children.
The local authority rejected a move in 2024 to convert the home for up to four children and then turned down another application to use the home for up to three children saying the facility was not needed.
The applicant Support and Sustain Care Ltd has now appealed to the government’s planning inspectorate in a bid to get the council’s ruling on the home for four children overturned.
City of Wolverhampton Council first rejected a move to convert the six-bed home into a residential home for up to four children in April 2024.
The local authority’s planners said the conversion would result in “greater levels of activity, noise and disturbance.”
In response, another application was then put forward to convert the home into a residential home for up to three children but that was also rejected by the council earlier this year.
The council said the loss of a six-bed family home would ‘inhibit it from reaching its housing targets’ and the city already had enough accommodation for vulnerable children.
“There is not a demonstrable need for additional private children’s care home accommodation within the city of Wolverhampton, and insufficient justification has been provided to outweigh the loss of a family dwellinghouse amidst growing housing targets,” the council said in a report outlining the refusal.
A statement included with the application for the residential home said: “The proposed development would provide an invaluable facility for a small number of vulnerable and neglected young people, offering a caring and nurturing environment that they may never have experienced previously. The kind of environment that those more fortunate might take for granted, with opportunities to play, learn and develop under the protective wing of fully trained carers.
“The conversion proposed will have no adverse impact upon the character of the area due to the small scale of the proposed facility.
“From the outside the property will appear no different to a family home and given the nature and quantum of care provided it is considered that a material change of use requiring planning permission would not arise and instead the proposed change of use would constitute lawful development.”
