Westmead Business Centre frontage

   Cllr. Hamish Pollock says: “A planning application has been submitted by Java Asset Management to demolish Westmead House (Westmead Business Centre) and replace it with a private 74-bedroom care home over three floors plus a mezzanine and lower ground floor.  This would include a roof garden, ancillary staff and resident facilities, plant and laundry, and 20 car parking spaces to be accessed from Kingsley Avenue.   The developers also propose 325 sq metres of retail floor space on the ground floor with provision of 8 car parking spaces fronting Cowper Avenue.
   Local resident Cllr. Jill Whitehead says “Many neighbours have told me how concerned they are with this new development, which we understand is intended by the developers to partly replace the much smaller publicly-owned Oakleigh Home in Benhill Avenue which could only accommodate 35 residents.  The new proposal will result in over-development, overlook homes in Kingsley Avenue and intrude on their privacy, and will create severe parking problems in an area already known for parking stress to the extent that residents in recent years called for a Controlled Parking Zone to be set up.”
   Cllr. Alan Salter adds: “We understand that Sutton has a surplus of care home places and that a development of this size would be unnecessary, particularly bearing in mind that there are also plans to build a residential development on the same site behind the care home, in the area bounded by Kingsley Avenue, Byron Avenue East and Cowper Avenue. As none of the homes in Byron Avenue East and Cowper Avenue have garages and already suffer from problem parking, the area could not really cope with this extra pressure on resources.”
    Jill, Hamish and Alan have asked for this planning application to be brought to the Development Control Committee for full discussion and decision.

You can view the plans C2012/65431/FUL at the Council Offices at 24 Denmark Rd, Carshalton or at:-http://213.122.180.105/FASTWEB/detail/asp?AltREf=C2012/65431

     More news in a future posting…