Plans to demolish and rebuild a Hoylake care home have been submitted to Wirral Council.
Minster Care Group, the owners of the Westhaven Care Home in Queens Road (pictured) are looking to demolish the existing building and replace it with a purpose-built 52-bed home. The plans are available to view here (opens in new window).
Westhaven care home is a converted property, originally 3 dwellings, which have been adapted to deliver care to 25 elderly Residents, within 23 bedrooms. Bedrooms in the existing property are split over the 2 floors with 1 area of day space to the ground floor.
The home has had a previous permission to extend to the rear, single storey to add a further 4 bedrooms and day space, although this has never been constructed. The existing buildings on the site take up 550m2 over 2 floors. The new proposal (pictured) has a footprint of 741m2 over 3 floors although the overall height of building is under the existing ridge line height. The new building would offer accommodation for 52 residents.
What are your thoughts? Does the proposed building fit in with other existing properties in and around Queens Road? Do the proposals satisfy a local demand for modern care facilities?
Comments welcome.
Th. e proposed building looks OK to me, I have memories of Westhaven. My mother in law Jane Brumfitt died in there after being well cared for in her final years
The building itself looks inoffensive enough although it means losing an established Edwardian/ Victorian property but one of our neighbour tells us it will block his sunlight so I have objected in support of his rights because if that was to happen to me I would hope that some of my neighbours might support me.
I grew up in Hoylake and I believe new entrepreneurial investments are sorely needed for aesthetic and employment purposes. Does anyone know what is going to happen to the gravesites on Grange Hill? I’ve never seen a cemetary is such a pathetic state of repair and the local council won’t reply to my enquiries.
“Plans to demolish and entirely rebuild Hoylake into a care home have been submitted to Wirral Council.”
There; fixed that for you John.
Inoffensive in itself perhaps but entirely out of character in a road that is very characterful because of its Victorian/Edwardian villas and terraces and an important part of Hoylake’s built heritage. It also abutts the King’s Gap Conservation Area so affects the ‘setting of a Conservation Area’ which in itself can provide grounds for refusal. Not the slightest effort has been made to reflect the traditional materials characteristic of Queen’s Road such as pressed red Ruabon brick and slate or clay tile roofing. It would look good in Milton Keynes but Hoylake deserves better. Imagine if all the houses in Queen’s and Cable and Alderley Roads were replaced with similar utilitarian buildings; Hoylake would cease being Hoylake because its built heritage is such a major defining factor. Please fight this terrible proposal!
Agreed, renovate or extend the existing building.
Well said Peter Wilson.
I’m no architect, nor historian, but agree with Peter Wilson re the impact on Queens Rd if the building is a modern monolith that doesn’t fit with the rest of the quality houses that have graced this area for many years. Unfortunately there are already precedents locally where planning permission has been given to such developments (The replacement of The Stanley Hotel with our local Butlins for example).
A bigger concern for me (as next door neighbour to the home) is the increased size – double the number of patients means more staff, deliveries, activity and associated noise and traffic. An increase from 9-11 car spaces is clearly insufficient as we already have visitors parking in Queens Rd rather than the current car park.
The current home is clearly tired and in need of some updating, particularly from the rear, but I think this proposal is totally unsuitable for what is a residential area.
I agree with many of the comments, although as a nurse working in elderly care, I can completely understand the need for updated facilities. However after looking at the plans and the proposed room sizes, they look tiny! I think increasing the home from a 24 bedded facility to a 52 bedded is unsuitable for the location of the property and a little bit greedy! I will opposing the development.
I agree with Peter Wilson, lets retain our beautiful Victorian & Edwardian properties, these properties were built to last, Queens Rd and surrounding areas are beautiful roads with historical significance…….I say we should be retaining this – not demolishing. If everone had the same view, we could be living in another Milton Keynes (that is not a derogatory comment on MK, as it is a choice if you prefer to live in a New Town).
I agree with the comments above.
These properties should be retained at all costs along with all the others that will be under threat if this latest ‘supersizing’ development gets approved.
I would like to see them turned back into houses and occupied by families who will spend money in Hoylake as originally intended.
Unfortunately the artists impression does not show the development in relation to the other properties in the road. With an increase in area of around 50% it looks like the new build will swallow up all the green space around it and the line of the property frontages will be skewed dramatically.
With the latest carbuncle on Market Street nearing completion I fear the worst but hope the Council forget about £ signs see sense.
Good to see that this shockingly bad application has been ‘withdrawn’! Let’s hope that’s the end of the matter.
Interesting- I hadn’t picked up on the fact that the application had been withdrawn. Always difficult to decide in these cases. Obviously the need for elderly care increases as we all get older………..but trying to fit into residential areas will always be tricky I suspect.