Council to approve plans for its own children’s home
Proposal involves conversion of adjoining properties on Hardwick Road
The council is set to approve its own plans to convert two adjoining properties on a residential street into a new children’s home.
The application seeks planning permission to change the use of a large four-bed home and a two-bed bungalow annexe at 70 Hardwick Road, Wellingborough, into a single children’s home for three young people.
North Northamptonshire Council’s (NNC) planning committee will debate the plans at a meeting tommorow.
According to the documents submitted by NNC as the applicant, the council will be the future freeholder of the property, however the operation will be run by children’s provider Homes 2 Inspire, which has a strategic partnership with the council.
If approved, the children’s home would house a maximum of three children at one time, supported with a minimum of three staff on site. The home would have six bedrooms, allocated for both staff and children, as well as a study and two lounges and kitchen areas.
The authority has said that the proposed home would “seek to operate as a family unit would” and that there would be adequate parking on the property’s drive to accommodate all staff members’ vehicles. The site also benefits from a large garden area to the rear and is within walking distance to education, open space, shops and other services.
Six letters of objection have been received from neighbouring residents, raising concerns about the intensification of the site and the impact on the community.
One person wrote: “The increased number of people living and working on site will inevitably result in greater levels of activity, noise, comings and goings, and vehicle movements.
“Introducing an institutional use of this intensity would fundamentally change the character of this residential street.”
NNC has said that the development would echo the current use of the site as a regular home and that additional visitors to the property would be unlikely to be dissimilar to that of the current use of the site by two families.
Homes 2 Inspire looks after children who have suffered adverse childhood experiences and trauma who are in the care of the Local Authority and for a range of reasons cannot live with their own families.
In 2024, NNC said it would set aside a pot of £15m to buy or build more of its own children’s homes in the county. It said the projects were critical to the Northamptonshire Children’s Trust’s savings programme as it would have to depend less on costly private care provision, with sums at the time predicting the authority could save up to £2,500 per week for each placement.
Officers have recommended that planning permission should be granted, subject to conditions, at the planning meeting on Wednesday, June 17th.