Plans for a nursing home offering 24-hour support to up to 10 adults with mental health issues has been approved in Weston-super-Mare .
North Somerset Council has given the green light to Friend 4 Friend Ltd’s plans for the former site of Clarence Park practice, whose staff and 5,000 patients have relocated to Graham Road.
It will care for residents with stress, anxiety, thought disorders, depression and eating disorders.
Neighbours had expressed concerns they would be disturbed by the 24-hour facility and it would "compromise" the area.
But planning officers said: “The proposal involves an inevitable intensification of the use of the site, due to accommodating a 24-hour facility, as opposed to the time framed operation of the previous doctors’ surgery.
“This facility is highly needed and it will be provided under the 24-hour supervision of experienced nursing staff who will ensure that the operation of the nursing home will not lead to increasing noise disturbance.
“Sufficient levels of privacy will be maintained by the introduction of a two-metre fence and by fitting obscure glazed bottom halves within existing first floor windows.”
The home will be modelled on the Oaklands Nursing Home in Severn Road, which has space for 10 adults aged 18 to 65, and managed by the same team.
The applicants said in their plans: “Oaklands regularly receives requests from North Somerset Council to accept new residents but 'blockages' in the system means that the best Oaklands can offer is to add new residents to a waiting list.
“Inevitably, there will be concerns that this proposal seeks to 'get people with mental health issues out onto the streets of Weston'. This is not the case.”
The facility is primarily aimed at the people of Weston, who must be judged by professionals as able to move in. They will not be dependent on drugs or alcohol and will not have an active police record.
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