Plan rejected for home supporting children with learning difficulties
A proposed residential home for children with learning difficulties has been rejected by planners.
Private care firm Albrighton Care Limited had hoped to set up a facility in an existing three-bedroom bungalow on Mill Lane, Pelsall, Walsall.
The company wanted to provide care for a maximum of three children at the home with one carer also staying overnight with them and hoped to achieve this without the need to apply for full planning permission.
But officers from Walsall Council turned down the application and said the proposal would represent a significant change of use of the bungalow.
In the application, agents for the company said: “The care home would provide accommodation for up to three children who would be cared for by trained carers 24 hours a day and seven days a week.
“Care would be given in a communal environment with the children and their carers sharing facilities in a manner akin to a family with no locks on bedroom doors.
“The children suffer from many challenges including learning disabilities, physical disabilities, autism or have experienced some sort of trauma in early life.
“The ethos behind the intended operations of this property would be for the residence to provide an environment as close as practically possible to normal family life in order to ensure that the children can live a life of normality in the local community.
“The applicant considers that such properties can offer a better environment than would be the case in larger institutions as they enable individual needs to be met and allow the children to integrate into their community and live as equal citizens.”
