PLANS for a residential children’s care home in Latchford that have caused ‘stress and anxiety’ are being recommended for approval.

An application proposing the change of use of number 2 Waterfront Drive, from a dwelling to a two-bed residential children’s home, will come before the development management committee at its meeting next Thursday.

According to a report to the committee, the home would provide 24-hour supervised care and accommodation for a maximum of two cared for children between the age of six and 17 who require residential care.

It adds: “The home would be run by a registered care provider as set out in the statement of purpose and supervised by an experienced care manager who will visit the property on a regular basis and will also be on-call to provide support to the staff.

“Where the care manager is not available a deputy manager will be on call. The applicant intends that priority will be given to the placement of children from the Warrington area wherever possible, however this cannot be secured via the planning process.”

A total of 30 individual neighbour consultations were carried out – and 15 letters of objection have been received as a result of the publicity given to the application, however, one objector ‘did not specify any reasons’ for the objection.

The reasons for the objections based on material planning grounds include, as summarised, potential disturbance from noise which would ‘detract from the general amenity of the area’, disturbance and disruption from workers who visit the site, general highway safety concerns with parking in the area being an ongoing issue, ‘impact on mental health and wellbeing’ of existing residents, and the proposal has caused ‘stress and anxiety’.

As stated in the report, it was requested that this application come before the committee on the basis of ‘material planning concerns regarding parking and residential amenity’ which have been raised by ward councillor Hans Mundry, who is the council leader.

The committee is being recommended to approve the application, subject to conditions, with delegated authority given to the development manager to make non-material changes to planning conditions and reasons ‘as may be necessary prior to the issue of the decision’.

In the report to the committee, it says the proposed change of use of a dwelling to a residential children’s care home is acceptable in principle, subject to a condition to restrict the specific use and the number of children to that proposed.

“It has been adequately demonstrated that the home would be operated to mitigate any impact on the amenity of neighbouring occupiers and the surrounding area, and the proposal would not adversely affect the highway network,” it adds.