Housing plans on former Inverness care home site rejected by Highland Council
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UNCERTAINTY over the future of a former care home site in Inverness looks set to continue after the latest plans to build housing on the site were rejected by Highland Council.
Planners threw out the proposal for two new homes on the former Fairfield Nursing Home site in the Highland captial's Fairfield Road.
The site has been shut since 2018, not long after inspectors slapped an improvement notice on the care home's operators.
In the five years that have passed since, numerous planning applications have been lodged for the site, with mixed success for the various applicants.
An initial application in 2020 by Inverness Property Management to convert the care home into a hotel with 32 bedrooms was rejected following objections from neighbours over its lack of parking and worries about pedestrian safety.
However, two subsequent housing-related planning applications for the site were later approved – a change of use application in 2021 and a partial-demolition application in October last year that included the change of use of the remaining buildings to form two houses.
Current applicant Manda Construction came back with a new application to construct a couple of three-bedroom semi-detached homes in the gap formed by the partial demolition of the site – and it is this application which has now been rejected.
Related: Owner of Inverness care home given planning OK to restore two homes on site
In their application Manda Construction supplied a supporting statement. In it they said: "The proposed three-bed semi-detached houses will be of a modest scale and character and will sympathetically sit within the surrounding context."
They said they would be "sensitively sited with respect to the local character and environment", and added that they were "designed in consideration to the existing adjoining dwellings."
"The sensitive siting of the development with the provision of at-least 1.7m margin from existing dwellings on each side would ensure that any issues arising from overlooking, onlooking or overshadowing can be avoided, and that the residential amenities of the existing dwellings can be preserved."
They also claimed that there had been no objections from neighbours.
But, rejecting the application under delegated powers, the council's planners said the two-storey houses occupied too much space within their respective plots.
"The plot densities for the proposed semi-detached houses is relatively high at 30 per cent, which is considerably more than that currently achieved at [the houses either side at] No.68 and No.70 of 22 per cent, and would introduce a significant increase to the original, and now reestablished, plot densities on this part of Fairfield Road.
"This would result in a considerably higher level of built development. Such a potential increase in plot density and building massing, was not considered to have been appropriate or successful during the operation of the care home; its re-introduction would not be appropriate through the current application.
"Accordingly, the proposed siting of two semi-detached houses... would result in an over-development of their garden ground; and would be significantly detrimental to, and would not maintain the original character of, this part of Fairfield Road, and is therefore not supported."
They also added that the on-site parking also occupied too much of the plots' footprint, which would add to the sense of "over-development".
As well as rejecting the houses for 'over-development' of the site, the planners also refused the application because "the suitability of the site for surface water drainage has not been demonstrated and therefore the proposal does not accord with the Highland Wide Local Development Plan."
