Holly Ramsey, the Conservative Councillor for Cheam, has had a lot of correspondence from residents in Cheam about the expansion of Chegworth Nursing Home. Please find her update below:
I have been interested in the on-going plans to refurbish and expand Chegworth Nursing Home 23 Downside, Cheam.
I have been representing residents living in close proximity to Chegworth over their fears of overdevelopment, disturbance and unsightliness from the constant building works happening on the site. At the same time, I fear for the livelihoods of those residents living within the Nursing Home – those residents have been subjected to ongoing works in their own home for three years now, some have had to be put in temporary accommodation for months on end (which is effectively a wooden hut in the garden of the site ), which cannot be healthy or proper for elderly residents.
During the past two years of works, the site has been a constant mess and I cannot understand how the owner of the home has allowed elderly residents to live like this, whilst also angering nearby residents over constant disturbance and mess.
As a way of background, the owner applied in 2013 to build a new 9 bedroom building, which also required the erection of temporary accommodation for residents to be housed in whilst the development was taking place. This project was then delayed by a year subjecting residents in the Nursing Home and neighbouring residents to two years of building works. Furthermore, during the two years of works, ancillary buildings were also erected in the garden for the builders which included a laundry room, a staff room and toilets. Throughout the two years this has been kept in an unsightly manner.
Just when residents thought it was all over and that the ancillary buildings would be coming down along with the temporary accommodation due to the new 9 bedroom building having been finished, residents were appalled to hear that it is far from over. A new application has now gone in for a further refurbishment of some older rooms in the home which will take ANOTHER year, making the total of building works and disturbance over three years. This also means that residents living in the nursing home will further be subjected to living in temporary accommodation…in the coldest months of the year.
To note, no-one is objecting to residents of the nursing home getting nice new refurbished rooms, the home is dated and it needs to be modernised. However, we would at least expect a compromise from the applicant for putting residents through a third year of work and for the applicant to do the right thing and tidy up the building site and remove the ancillary buildings immediately. They should be coming down now that the new build is finished, but they are still up, and at a recent planning committee meeting the applicant refused to agree to take the ancillary buildings down, which would free up the garden space and make the site more aesthetically pleasing for everyone. This is at least what all residents deserve after having put up with the constant expansion, noise, disturbance and mess….but it doesn’t seem the applicant is willing to engage.
I would have hoped for Sutton Council to have done more on this issue, as well as members of the Planning Committee pushing the applicant to make more leeway to compromise with residents, but to my disappointment that hasn’t been the case so far. Myself, along with residents have not given up yet and we will keep fighting for a better deal.