Former Worthing care home to be converted into flats

The application for the former Roshni care home, in Reigate Road, was given the thumbs-up during an online meeting of the planning committee last week.

The idea was not too popular with locals, with the council receiving 61 letters of objection, including concerns about parking problems, over-development and noise.

Speaking to the committee, ward councillor Edward Crouch (Con, Marine) said the concerns of residents ‘largely have not been taken account of’, adding: “Worthing deserves better than this.”

The house used to be a family home before permission was given in the early 1980s to convert it into a care home.

Mr Crouch said: “The 70s and 80s were not a good period for our town generally and a number of fine family homes were carved up into small units.

“We’re left with a legacy of parking issues, of over- intensification, of a lack of outside amenity space and all this is doing is adding to it.

“It’s 2020. The 80s are a dim and distant memory and we shouldn’t be adding to problems that were created 30+ years ago.”

Paul Baker (Con, Broadwater) agreed saying he would ‘feel really sorry for the local residents’ if the application was approved, adding it was ‘overbearing, overlooking and overdevelopment’.

Others, though, were more supportive.

Jim Deen (Lab, Central) said he had ‘an awful lot of sympathy’ with the issues raised but added: “That building exists. It has to have a use.

“This seems like a very genuine use and a very useful way of reusing that space – one which is clearly not going to go back to being a care home because it probably doesn’t meet the kind of standards that would be accepted now.”

The application was approved by six votes to two.

The building will be converted into five two-bedroom flats and one one-bedroom, plus a single-storey rear extension.

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