Councillors have approved Beechcroft Developments’ plans to create a care home and assisted living accommodation along with additional housing, at Caversham Park House in Reading.

Reading Borough Council’s planning applications committee approved the revised proposals to develop the site, which has been empty since BBC Monitoring left it in 2018, at its June 26 meeting.

Beechcroft’s plans mean the conversion of the 174-year-old Grade II-listed Caversham Park House into 65 assisted living units and a new development of a 64-bed care home next door.

Various buildings on the 93-acre site will be demolished and satellite dishes removed for further homes including:

  • 29 homes for people aged over 55 to the east of the site
  • 12 homes for over 55s to the north east
  • 27 affordable homes to the west

A cricket pitch, croquet lawn and tennis court will be available for use and a pavilion extended to house a café and interpretation hub, created to allow the public to learn about the site and its history.

There will be public access around the perimeter and gardens for the first time. In Autumn and Winter, the public will have access from 7.45am – 4pm and from7.45am – 8pm in Spring and Summer

It will be closed to the public on Christmas Day but open days will be held at the mansion twice a year.

Chris Thompson, managing director of Beechcroft Developments, said: “Beechcroft has been building these sorts of schemes for about 40 years now and I can’t think of a better location.

“The site is close to local shops, which are next door, and the site lies within a safe and secure parkland setting, close to bus stops.

“Older people don’t drive as much, particularly those who will be living in the assisted living units in the listed building or in the care home.

“Those who do still drive will do so at less busy times of the day and not during the school run, or at the beginning and the end of the business day.

“There’s a national shortage of specialist old specialist housing for older people and especially in Reading where most new development in recent years have been flats in the town centre for first time buyers.

“This type of housing will also free up local underoccupied housing for families to move into the development.”

Pedestrian access will be created off Lowfield Road but, in response to a request from the committee, Mr Thompson said it was not possible to move the siting of that because a ransom strip was discovered around the site perimeter which he believes dates back to the creation of Caversham Park Village in the 1960s.

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