Plans in to demolish Oaklands Lodge Hotel and build care home

Tuesday 18 April 2023

Plans have been submitted to demolish the Oaklands Lodge Hotel on Trinity Hill to replace it with a 40-bed care home.

Dandara has officially asked permission to knock down all existing buildings on the site, which includes the Red Rose restaurant and Blacksmiths’ Arms.

The two-storey property, which was built in 1971, currently has 16 beds, including ten suites and four one-bedroom apartments.

In the submitted planning statement, the applicant says: “At its heart, the proposal seeks to utilise brownfield land to help meet the identified need for specialist housing needs.

“The application documentation demonstrates a fundamental change from a site inefficiently used and dominated by a large tarmacadamed car park and a poorly designed building, to an efficiently utilised site that enhances the public realm, public safety, and the setting of adjacent Listed buildings, and provides well-designed landscaping and buildings sensitively designed for their context, and including lower, appropriate levels, of car parking. 

“Ecological enhancements and increased levels of landscaping and permeable ground will deliver net biodiversity gain.”

Pictured: The Oaklands Lodge Hotel is along Route de la Trinité by the Sir Francis Cook Gallery.

It adds: “Delivering this range of enhancements, allied to the provision of specialist housing needed by the Island accords with the relevant aims and policies of the Bridging Island Plan and therefore, approval is reasonable having regard to all material considerations.”

The application includes creating a 20-space car park, four motorcycle spaces and new access from the main road.

Dandara has also recently resubmitted an application to build a 57-bed dementia nursing care home and ten supported-living flats, to be run by LV Care Group, along with 63 apartments in Plat Douet Road.

The developer’s first attempt at gaining permission was rejected by the Planning Committee in December.