A former hotel on the outskirts of Cambridge which includes a Victorian villa will be demolished to make way for a new 80-bed care home.
South Cambridgeshire District Council had previously refused the application to demolish and replace the former Hotel Felix in Girton.
This decision has now been overturned by a national planning body, which said the benefits of the scheme would “clearly outweigh” the harm.
Plans were originally submitted by Cassel Hotels (Cambridge) Ltd to redevelop the hotel site into a new care home, including a dementia research centre, which would link in-house care to professionals working at Addenbrooke’s Hospital.
The scheme would see the demolition of the existing hotel, which includes a Victorian main house, surrounded by later extensions.
At a district council planning committee in July 2022 councillors unanimously voted to refuse the application after raising concerns about the impact of the development on the green belt and on the nearby GP practice, which they had heard was already over capacity.
Concerns were also raised about the loss of the Victorian main house, which councillors heard was “magnificent” and important to people in Girton.
It was also suggested by councillors that work could be to improve the fabric of the building, rather than knocking it down.
However, a representative of the company behind the plans said there were “numerous and significant” benefits to the scheme, including a need for more care home beds in the area.
They said there would be provision made on site for GP and healthcare services, and that the new care home would create around 115 jobs. An inquiry was held by the planning inspectorate to consider the application.
In their decision report, the planning inspector accepted that the proposal was “inappropriate development” and was therefore “harmful”.
However, they said there was also “negligible loss of openness” and that “substantial weight” had to be given to both of these points.
They said: “Whilst of greater volume and footprint, I consider the scheme’s greater compactness means any potential loss in openness would be negligible such that it would have little appreciable visual effect on the openness of the green belt.”
The planning inspector said the Victorian main house was “attractive with some pleasing external and internal architectural features”, but said there was “nothing inherently special” about the design, saying: “It has been substantially extended, unsympathetically in places, and interior features have been lost. It does not meet the criteria for statutory listing.
“The council considered that the building has a ‘medium/moderate’ level of significance in both its design and association, whereas the appellant says the significance is ‘low’. In my view I consider it has a low-to-moderate level of significance.”
The report said Cambridgeshire County Council accepted there was “unmet need” in the area of more care home beds, but said it had argued there was not a “significant unmet need”.
The inspector said “contradictory evidence” was presented at the inquiry about assessments predicting the need for care home spaces in the area.
They said it was “difficult to predict with certainty” the precise need, but said they agreed with the appellant that there were “certain flaws” with the methodology used by the county council to determine need.
The planning inspector said: “This is likely to have significantly under-estimated the need for additional care beds. Taking evidence in the round, I consider there is an existing and pressing increasing need for additional care beds.
“I consider the timely development of new supply is necessary to meet not only the existing shortfall, but also to address the increasing need based on the substantial growth in the elderly population in South Cambridgeshire.”
The planning inspector said after considering all the evidence that they believed the benefits of the overall scheme would “clearly outweigh” the harm on the green belt, and the loss of a non-designated heritage asset.
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