Hailsham land targeted for new 68-bed care home

On land to the north of Marshfoot Lane at Harebeating Farm which is currently vacant paddock space, Signature Prime Properties has applied to Wealden District Council to build a residential care home with parking.

The home will have 68 bedrooms, a café, library and treatment rooms. There will also be several informal lounges and two ‘large secure internal gardens’ according to the plans.

Some 20 car parking spaces will be created too alongside space for bikes and electric charging points.

In terms of access, the home would be just off Marshfoot Lane, a lane that residents are already saying cannot cope with development plans.

In a petition submitted by residents about the 300-home development requiring access via the lane, Marshfoot Lane was called ‘a small, narrow rural, dead-end lane with no turning points’ which already has a number of sites along it including two schools, a cattery and a football ground.

According to the plans, Marshfoot Lane is a ‘two-way single carriageway road that connects to many other residential roads’ and there is a footpath on the northern side.

Plans for the home say, “The application site presents an opportunity to introduce a care home at an allocated and sustainable location on the edge of the key settlement of Hailsham. Marshfoot Lane as an adopted highway ends within the frontage of the site and this sets the point of access towards its western end.

“The tarmacked extents of Marshfoot Lane ends close to the proposal site, with a single lane track continuing to the west, providing access to a local cattery and some farm buildings.

“The scheme has excellent access arrangements with compliant on-site visitor and operational vehicle parking plus cycle parking. The access allows for delivery vehicles to turn and manoeuvre.”

Planners say the scheme ‘respects and repeats the domestic scale’ of surrounding dwellings in order to ‘minimise its presence and impact’.

The care home will also provide employment opportunities in the form of 30 full-time positions needed to run the home.

When concluding, planners say, “We have shown that the site is in a sustainable location and the proposed development can be accommodated without detriment to vehicular flows and road safety on the surrounding highway network.”

Members of the public can comment on the plans until September 10.

Access the plans here: https://planning.wealden.gov.uk/plandisp.aspx?recno=154498