Decision due on Broadbridge Heath retirement community plans

Prime UK Land wants to develop a site off the A264 Five Oaks Road for a continuing care retirement community called ‘Horsham Green’.
It would comprise of a 60-bed nursing home, 32-bed dementia care home, around 210 extra care units and a community hub building.

An outline application is set to be discussed by Horsham District Council’s planning committee north on Tuesday July 7.

The extra care units would be a mix of bungalows, cottages and apartments.

Meanwhile the community hub would have a swimming pool, therapy rooms, gym and restaurant.

A number of formal and information open spaces would be created including a boating lake, bowling green, croquet lawn, greenhouses and allotments.

However council officers are recommending refusal.

Planners argue that the development would have a significantly urbanising influence in the settlement gap between Broadbridge Heath and Slinfold resulting in harm to the countryside character of the area.

Their report highlights how the River Arun and A264 both provide strong natural and physical defensible barriers from existing urban development to the east and open countryside to the west.

Officers added: “The placing of a development of this scale in this location would result in a negative urbanising effect on the countryside character of the area, with the development seen as encroaching into the countryside.”

Both Slinfold and Broadbridge Heath parish councils have objected.

Slinfold PC labelled the plans an ‘opportunistic development’ that ‘does not sit well in the landscape’, while the site is ‘isolated and transport links are inadequate for shift pattern and elderly residents’.

Meanwhile Broadbridge Heath PC objected to ‘urban creep and overdevelopment’, which would blur the boundary between the two villages.

Although five letters of support from NHS practitioners have been received, 39 individual objections were sent in as well as a petition with 34 signatures opposing the scheme.

They argued the development did not satisfy countryside development criteria, raised capacity in existing care homes, and highlighted concerns about overdevelopment, urbanisation, highway capacity, road safety, flooding, drainage, the loss of gap between the two settlements as well as the impact on listed buildings and ecology.

The developer has made a last minute plea for the plans to be accepted by councillors.

Sajid Ali, managing director of Prime UK Land, said: “We’ve worked hard to develop a unique, comprehensive proposal providing multiple care facilities and services on a single site – especially dementia care, nursing care and extra care – whilst keeping heights and densities low, protecting the surrounding landscape and enhancing biodiversity.

“I’m particularly proud that we are able to offer 100 per cent care accommodation, with no general housing, and all open-market units made available for shared ownership with local people receiving first priority.

“We want this facility to be of benefit to current residents of Horsham district, particularly in its rural communities, who may wish to downsize, and we have agreed with the council that those with a local connection to the district will have priority for all the extra care units, both market and affordable.

“I hope committee members and Horsham residents will feel that, on balance, the proposal offers such considerable benefits for care provision in Horsham district that they will feel able to lend their support.

“And if consented, we hope to work closely with the local Parish Councils to make sure they are proud of what is delivered here.”

The scheme is not the only retirement community being proposed in the area.

Separate plans for 141 retirement homes at Wellcross Farm south of the Newbridge Nursery Garden Centre site are also awaiting a decision by HDC.

To find out more about the scheme visit its website

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