When Bob Dingle first proposed converting a rambling nursing home into a state-of-the-art unit for people with dementia, he believed he would get an instant go-ahead. The old building would be knocked down and replaced by a £2m luxury complex with double the capacity.
The scheme, to be developed two miles from Cornwall's famous covered conservatories - the Eden project - seemed to have everything going for it. But that was three years ago. Today, faced with a barrage of opposition from local planners, Dingle fears he may have no option but to close the home and pull out of the business altogether.
His MP, Liberal Democrat Colin Breed, is appalled at the saga and argues that local authorities should be doing everything they can to encourage nursing homes to stay open. Latest figures from the Department of Health show that nursing homes are closing at a rate of three a week, and only last month it emerged that beds in two wards at the Royal Cornwall hospital, near Truro, were being taken up by frail elderly people who should be in nursing care.
Vicky Bridges, a consultant old age psychiatrist, says the shortage of EMI (elderly mental illness) beds is so severe in the county that people with dementia are stuck in acute care beds for up to nine months. "It's a very serious problem and there is no doubt that more beds are needed," she says.
Just 22 people are currently resident at Penpillick nursing home, a former hotel perched on a hilltop in two acres of grounds outside Par. Much of the building is in desperate need of renovation and updating - as noted by inspectors.
Dingle refuses to spend money on a home he plans to knock down. He believes his proposed building would dramatically improve the quality of life of residents. Under the plans he has put forward to Restormel council, the complex would be able to cater for 44 residents in en suite bedrooms spread across three wings, each with its own day room and enclosed garden area.
According to Dingle, planners originally supported the scheme, but then vetoed it. Numerous meetings have followed with a succession of different planning officers. He says he has been told that the plans, which have been amended, would flout government policy because of the extra traffic they would generate on local roads. The planners also have concerns about the visual impact of the new building and the fact that the site is near a dangerous road junction.
Dingle is furious. He says he has tried to meet the council's concerns and has hired a landscape architect recommended by the local authority. "None of these objections is very real," he says. "But it must be the increased traffic one that incenses me most. How can planners object on the grounds that there will be more traffic, when they gave the go-ahead to the Eden project, which must generate millions of extra cars on the road?"
Friction has worsened over their request for a business plan, as Dingle refuses to part with information he says is commercially sensitive.
Paul Gage, case officer for Restormel council, accepts that there is a need for specialist accommodation for elderly mentally ill people, but insists that the complex is not the answer. "What is being proposed is actually four times bigger than the current building," he say. "It is right in the middle of the countryside and is only accessible by private car. This is unsustainable and contrary to government advice and the county's structure plan.
"We accept there is a need... but what is being proposed is a money-making enterprise - and nothing more than that."
Three years after it was first presented to the council, the scheme is due to go before its planning committee next Tuesday, with yet another recommendation for refusal. Dingle is pinning his hopes on a site visit by councillors "so they can see Penpillick - and what it means to elderly people - for themselves".
For Hilary Scott, whose 82-year-old mother, Betty Duffey, is a resident at Penpillick, the uncertainty over the future of the home is almost unbearable. "My husband and I are at our wits' end," says Scott, from Bodmin. "We spent months trying to find a suitable home for my mother, who is very happy at Penpillick in her own way.
"The plans are marvellous. If they don't go through and the home closes, I don't know what we are going to do. We live in a one bedroom flat - and my mother will be left homeless."
