The former La Grande Lande Private Residential Home has been reclassified as a property of multiple occupancy.
It used to offer 15 rooms for residential care in a rural setting, near St Saviour’s Church, but it closed in the immediate post-covid era.
The former owner had looked to extend its offering, with Savills recently marketing the site with ‘historic permissions to create further rooms for residents and staff accommodation to provide a total of 26 rooms’.
The current owner of the facility – who paid just over £1million for it in March last year – hasn’t asked for further permission to extend it, instead requesting a change of use so that the existing buildings could be used as a ‘premises in multiple occupation’ offering accommodation for 30 people sharing two to a room.
There were initially some concerns raised by the Office of Environmental Health and Pollution Regulation around the number of showers, ovens, and sinks provided for the number of people who will be living there, but those were allayed when the plans were resubmitted with additional facilities offered.
The Planning Officers said that as the former residential home did not provide a specialised care facility it was not considered to be specialised housing so there was no need to demonstrate that the facility is no longer required as it was.
No other concerns were raised during the consultation period so the request to allow the change of use was approved.
La Grande Lande is immediately adjacent to St Saviour’s Parish Church.
The site includes ownership of tunnels built during the Second World War.
They are part of a network of tunnels built by slave workers at the behest of the German occupying forces.
The tunnels which start in the grounds of La Grande Lande extend beneath the church.
They were used for ammunition storage during the Occupation, and remained open to the public until they were closed for safety reasons in the 1990s.