Luxury care home will ‘destroy last green space’ in Glasgow community

The bid would see a former bowling club demolished to make way for the 66 bedroom home on Helensburgh Drive. But residents claim the development would be too high, rob the area of badly needed outdoor public space and cause overlooking.

The firm behind the bid, Northcare Ltd, said there is a need for a new care home in Jordanhill. It said the development would create new public open space with a community garden and would also bring 90 permanent jobs.

A design brief shows the care home would have a cinema, spa, community cafe with rooftop terraces, a cocktail bar would be “a contemporary take on the traditional sandstone tenement.”

A planning bid for the home was rejected by the council earlier this year but a new application has been submitted to “resolve” reasons given for the earlier refusal according to a design document.

Objecting to the development Victoria Park councillor Eunis Jassemi, Labour, said: “I have serious reservations regarding the size of the proposed building with four storeys overlooking the surrounding private properties and it remains out of character having a commercial building on the land and overlooking and invading privacy. Residents in the area have raised this specific issue with concerns regarding the public terrace being incredibly intrusive to residents.”

Residents Alistair and Pat Leanord are unhappy about the development gobbling up green space.

Alistair said: “It is the last green space in Jordanhill. Once it is gone it is gone.”

An objection from Niamh Hay said the “light pollution caused by the care home will be devastating as workers will be up during the night and lots of rooms will have lights on all the time.”

She added: “This care home will also have a negative impact on the traffic for the neighbours as there will be lots of visitors going in and out throughout the whole day changing this street from a peaceful street to a busy street with a lot of cars.”

Northcare director William Sawers said: “Jordanhill is a location where there is a great need for new, quality care provision” and “our care homes are state of the art luxurious and award winning in terms of quality.”

He added: “We aim to be good neighbours and make our in-house community facilities available to the local community. In this instance we are creating public open space and making contributions to alternative sports provision.

“The care facility will also provide 90 permanent jobs over 10 different staff grades and create great employment opportunities for the local community.

“In terms of the design, we have justified this greatly through our design and access statement for the planning application and made revisions following comments from the local community and planning officers to enhance the open space we are also creating for the community to freely use.”

Mr Sawers continued: “If a care home is not developed on the site it is likely to be used for residential apartments or possibly student housing. The community has an opportunity to influence how this decided.”

The application is due to be considered by the council.