Following hot on the heels of its recent success in planning at Guildford, Perseus has received consent at appeal for its new 70-bedroom care home scheme in the town of West Malling in Kent.
The site was acquired on a subject to planning basis by Perseus in collaboration with the Barwood Growth Fund IV and benefitted from extant planning consent for a large tarmac car park.
Perseus’s Managing Director, Duncan Ford, commented: “We are delighted that the company’s first planning appeal has resulted in a successful outcome, and this is yet another example of a scheme which should never have gone to appeal in the first place, since our application was refused by the LPA on the grounds that it would impact adversely on the experience of travelling towards the listed St Mary’s Abbey located several hundred metres away on the opposite side of a railway embankment. This was despite neither Historic England nor Kent CC Heritage Team raising any objections, and written support for our proposals from Kent CC Social Services. We would like to thank Richard Harwood KC OBE and Gillings Planning for their knowledgeable assistance in countering what was a very poor initial planning decision”.
This project underscores Perseus’s persistence and willingness to grapple with some of the less straightforward sites in planning terms. Please do get in touch if you are aware of similar sites which might benefit from our expertise.
