A Derbyshire care home will be extended despite concern over flooding issues in surrounding houses.
At a Derbyshire Dales District Council meeting last night (July 11), plans for a 16-bed dementia unit extension to the Ivonbrook Residential Care Home in Eversleigh Rise, Darley Bridge, close to Matlock, were approved.
This was the second time the plans had been to the council, with councillors rejecting the first iteration of the scheme in August last year.
However, the applicantion proved successful at the second time of asking with a tweaked version of the scheme, moving it slightly away from neighbouring homes and shifting car parking around to the opposite side of the current building, avoiding further disruption to residents.
This followed a lengthy and complex discussion about the impact of flooding and the proposed drainage plans put forward by the applicant and how these could or could not be improved – along with how trustworthy the applicant’s submitted expert reports were.
Residents spoke about how existing issues in the area caused their homes to flood on a regular basis, including last weekend, and feared this would worsen.
Planning officials on the council advised that it was not the applicant’s responsibility to solve the area’s flooding problems, just what is within their ownership and that their plans specifically do not provably worsen the situation.
Meanwhile, management at the care home spoke about the urgent need for more care home beds, specifically those catering for residents with dementia, and said the expansion would also support the future longevity of the current facility.
Hannah Shakespeare, a resident of Willow Grange, opposite and downhill from the site, told the meeting: “When it rains heavily water from the Ivonbrook car park cascades down Ivonbrook Close and this overwhelms all the existing flood mitigations at my house, including the soakaway and consequently we get flood water in our property.
“This is a real existing problem today, it doesn’t just happen during a one in-20 flooding event, it happens several times a year and with increasing frequency and indeed it happened on both Saturday and Sunday.”
She claimed the proposed scheme would “certainly make my flooding problems worse” by creating more area covered by development instead of grassland.
Mike Andrews, speaking on behalf of a number of Eversleigh Rise residents, said: “It is frustrating that we are here again to consider a scheme which is materially the same as the last one, which was so resoundingly rejected by this committee in 2022.”
He said the scheme would not be adequately blocked by planned tree planting, claiming this would lead to a “significant” loss of privacy.
Mr Andrews said lights from the building would shine into his home’s upper rooms, that noise from care home residents would prove disruptive and that his property’s rear garden was already consistently waterlogged in winter.
Johnathan Edwards, who also lives across from the site, said he was opposing the plans due to their scale, disturbance linked to lighting and the potential structural damage to his home caused by construction.
He said the scheme represented “significant urban development in the countryside” and would “dwarf” surrounding properties, amounting to a care home 15 times the size of his home.
Mr Edwards told the meeting: “Darley Bridge is a small community in a rural setting. It is a matter of metres away from the Peak District. There are a small number of homes, a pub, a church and a village hall and a small primary school. Such a large commercial building would be a poor fit in the Darley Bridge setting.”
He claimed seven of the bedrooms in the new extension would be within 30 metres of his home and the closest would be 13 metres away.
Mr Edwards said: “I understand there is pressure to increase the number of care places across Derbyshire but I do not think this means that overbearing proposals close to existing homes in small villages are necessary.”
Mr Edwards said he was not opposed to all development on the site and was open to constructive plans.
Cllr Matt Buckler said: “I recognise the value of the work being undertaken by the Ivonbrook care home to provide care within our communities, enabling people to remain near to their families – and there is an undoubted need for suitable beds within the district.”
However, he said “significantly improved” management of drainage from the site was needed, with homes already flooding due to the amount of hardstanding (impermeable surfaces) in the area.
Adam Hodgson, Ivonbrook’s manager, said: “Last year Derbyshire County Council closed seven of its care homes, this increased the need for dementia care beds even more.
“Given that a private investor is willing to create a development that is accessible to local residents and isn’t going to be at the expense of the council that they cannot afford, this should be taken into consideration.”
Clare Wright, director at Ivonbrook, said: “Council asks you to not consider the emotional aspects of providing dementia care. Have you ever experienced dementia? Have you ever seen what the people of the UK are experiencing?
“Look around the room. One in five of you will experience this dreadful disease.”
She said the single-storey development would be dug into the side of the hillside, making it lower than if it was built at the current ground level, and would be 18.9 metres from the nearest property and 35 metres from the nearest bedroom.
Council officials said there had been no response from Derbyshire County Council, the lead local flood experts, in relation to the tweaked application.
They said a potential “hydrobreak” aimed at collecting and slowly dispersing flood water was proposed as an improvement by the applicants and that officers would work to ensure drainage issues were suitably catered for.
Chris Whitmore, the council’s head of planning, said officers had “reasonable confidence that development should not make the situation worse”.
Cllr David Hughes said: “Yet again I think we are underestimating the impact of flooding in the Derbysire Dales and the negative contribution it makes to people’s lives and we should be very careful when we make planning decisions where there is a possibility of flooding, particularly when residents are already affected by flooding from that particular site.”
Mr Whitmore responded: “From my perspective, it is unreasonable to require the developer to attenuate surface water from the site to prevent flooding of neighbouring properties where that already happens.
“I mean how far do you go with that? Do you want them to alleviate the whole of the flooding problems for the whole of Matlock?”
He said it was fair to ask the developer to manage water from the development site but not issues beyond it.
Councillors eventually approved the plans unanimously, with extra conditions to ensure flooding and drainage issues are appropriately and comprehensively managed.
