Owner of Inverness care home given planning OK to restore two homes on site

A FORMER Inverness care home is to revert to being two smart villas in a desirable part of the city.

Fairfield Care Home closed in 2018 and now Taj Manda has been given planning permission from Highland Council to change its use to two four-bedroom houses.

This will entail ripping down three extensions including the link that converted the two dwellings to make it the 32-bedroom care home.

Planning approval papers state: “In essence the extensions to the two original houses (68 and 70 Fairfield Road) formed for the care home will be removed to restore the original footprint of the two houses with a separate vehicular access formed for each property.”

Each house will comprise on the ground floor lounge, dining room, kitchen and family room/bedroom and on the first floor four bedrooms.

The external finishes for the houses will remain as existing apart from where the extensions were attached. The finished treatment of these elevations is unknown until the demolition work is carried out.

There was concern locally when Mr Manda applied to convert the care home to three houses, with some neighbours fearing that it might become a house of multiple occupation and cause parking problems.

This application was withdrawn and replaced with the two-house plan.

Phased demolition of the extensions will be carried out before the “old” houses are restored to having their own gardens, car access and entrance doors.

A planning condition is that within two months of demolition starting, the developer must confirm what external covering will be used on the walls where extensions were attached.

Another planning condition is parking for three cars at each house.

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