Plans for dementia care home on gardens at Melton business park

The scheme would be built on the green space fronting the Nottingham Road site, adjacent to the entrance and access road and also the historic Staveley Lodge, which housed paratroopers during the Second World.

Proposals submitted to Melton Borough Council state that the development is part of a masterplan designed to provide funds to reinvest in Pera’s flourishing business park, which is currently home to more than 100 businesses.

The care home development would create over 100 new jobs, according to the planning application, and address a future need for the borough, with a projected increase in people aged 65 and over by 45 per cent up to 2040.

The proposed new buildings would be up to four storeys high, with the care home to the eastern side of the site and the apartments to the west.

It is planned for the care home building to step up in tiers with terrace gardens on the roof of each level to maximise the visual and sensory stimulation of residents.

The existing Pera access will be used with a new junction created on the private driveway to allow vehicles to get to a new central parking area for the care home and apartments.

Plans have been drawn up with the intention of not detracting from the setting of the hunting lodge, which would be retained as part of the business park.

Some trees on the site are protected but others will be removed to make way for the development and new planting would also take place.

The applicants explain mitigating reasons for building on a greenland site in a report, which states: “The application site comprises large open areas of grass with a mixture of mature trees with merit and lower quality trees and shrubs.

“It is not actively used by tenants of the business park and has limited amenity to the wider context given there is no access to the public and the boundaries have become increasingly overgrown and dense, limiting views into the site.”

The scheme has been amended following informal discussions with borough council planning officials, resulting in a design which has less impact on the gardens and the historic lodge and a reduction in the number of extra care apartments from 42 to 30.

Further developments of the Pera site, which has been in the town since 1946, are being considered, such as converting the underused conference centre into additional office space.

Another proposal under consideration is replacing the 50-year-old research building on the site with a new office facility capable of providing up to 70,000sqft of new offices.

We reported last week that Pera was being suggested by Melton MP, Alicia Kearns, as a potential site for some of the thousands of civil servants who would come to the town if a campaign is successful to convince the government to relocate the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) from London.