Plans to build a 72-bed dementia care home in Hale have been rejected by Trafford Council.
Octopus Healthcare had submitted a plan to demolish a detached residential home on Bankhall Lane and replace it with a “state of the art” specialist dementia care home.
The residential home, Great Heyes, had been sold to Octopus after a fierce bidding war last year and Care Home UK had been tasked with managing the facility on a leasehold basis.
Octopus had argued that the planned high-end development – where rooms would cost up to £650 a week – would provide “much-needed accommodation for older people in the locality” at a time of “significant unmet demand” for dementia care.
But at a meeting of its planning committee earlier this week, Trafford refused permission for the development to begin.
Offering three main reasons, it said the proposed development would “fail to preserve or enhance the character and appearance of the adjacent South Hale Conservation Area”, would be “inappropriate to the site’s semi-rural context”, and would also disturb the protected species located on the site.
The plans had not been supported by Trafford’s children, families and wellbeing services department or Trafford’s Clinical Commissioning Group, and representations objecting to the scheme had been made by dozens of local residents.
