Plans to build a care home on a garden centre site could be approved by North Northants Council next week

A care home could be built on part of a site currently used by a garden centre at ‘long-term risk’ despite objections.

The Olive Grove garden centre near Polebrook would occupy a smaller part of its current spot off Oundle Road if North Northamptonshire Council gives the plan the go-ahead next week.

Polebrook Parish Council unanimously objected to the plan, claiming the two-storey care home and adjoining cafe would be ‘excessive’ in the countryside and more suited to an ‘urban environment’.

It also said it worried about possible light pollution and waste water management.

But the council’s planning department said the positives of the development, including about 30 new full-time jobs being created and potentially securing the garden centre’s long-term future, outweigh the negatives.

It said though the proposal ‘would change the character of the site and its immediate surroundings’, that would not be to the extent to warrant it being refused.

It added there is a ‘significant unmet need’ of care bed spaces in North Northamptonshire and that the new development would ensure a good standard of accommodation.

All 68 bedrooms would include wet rooms, for example, which are not included in all care homes in the area.

About 70 per cent of care homes in North Northamptonshire were built before 2000, the council said, and a lack of private cleaning facilities ‘can have significant implications for the well-being and health’ of residents.

The care home would take up the bulk of the space and would be operated by Lincolnshire-based Country Court Care Homes.

The size of the garden centre, which says it has the widest range of olive trees in the UK, would be cut by about two-thirds.

It would be rebuilt on the eastern part of the site.

The council said some objectors’ concerns, which included that the site could be ‘windy and cold’ and that potential care home residents could feel isolated, were not matters that could materially affect the proposal.

One objector claimed they were opposed because the site is in the green belt when it is not.

Others opposed said they were worried about extra traffic caused by the project.

But the council’s highways department said it is ‘unlikely’ to have a significant impact on its network, with just a ‘marginal increase’ anticipated on a normal day.

The council’s north planning committee will be asked to decide if the proposal should be given planning permission next Wednesday.