Residents in a quiet cul-de-sac in Linlithgow Bridge will learn next week if plans for a 60 bed care home next door will go ahead.
Proposals by Inuos Developments to build a 60 bed care home on a site occupied by a former GM Flooring showroom were put on hold by West Lothian Council’s Development Management Committee in a bid to find solutions to parking proposals.
Homeowners in Broomyhill Place - many of whom are in their Eighties - fear their peace and quiet will be shattered if the development goes ahead.
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They say the new care home will loom over their own four storey blocks and an exit road will turn their quiet tree lined cul-de-sac into a busy road used all hours of the day and night, and only a few feet from the windows of their ground floor flats.
There are fears that existing parking spaces around their development will be used by staff and visitors and the development will also see the removal of shrubbery and garden ground cultivated by the owners.
Many of the younger residents in the Broomyhill Place flats have already sold up and moved on.
Planners had recommended planning permission for the care home with strict conditions attached. The plans had still drawn 28 objections.
Neighbours described losing garden ground, trees and shrubbery to tarmac and branded the plan “environmental vandalism.”
At the core of the dispute, the residents say the planners applied town centre parking rules to a site which is not town centre.
At the initial hearing it emerged there would only be 16 spaces provided for the home. Daytime staff cover at the home would between 20 and 25.
Councillors on the Development Management Committee highlighted the parking problems around St John's Hospital in Livingston where surrounding residential streets have long been choked with overspill parking.
The DMC agreed to stall a decision on the application by Colin Rhodes’s firm Inuos to build the new care home for two months to get clearer answers on parking plans.
A decision on the care home plans is expected when the committee re-convenes on Wednesday, 19 September.
At the initial meeting Mr Rhodes admitted he was “relaxed” about car parking issues, a phrase he later apologised for using.
Questioning the planning assumptions that staff parking was allocated on the basis of one space per five staff, Councillor Willie Boyle told the initial hearing he had no issues with the principal of the care home but he added: “The idea of five staff members sharing one parking space appals me, quite frankly. ”
Since the initial hearing residents have complained to the council about the way in which the planning application, and their objections, were handled.
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