An empty care home building in Inverness seems fated to remain empty after Highland councillors rejected plans to turn it into a 32 bedroom accommodation.
Inverness Property Management (IPM) had already withdrawn its application to convert the former Fairfield nursing home on Fairfield Road into a large guest house/budget hotel in order to to make adjustments to the plans to satisfy local objections.
Fairfield nursing home closed in 2018 after the Care Inspectorate served an improvement notice on it.
IPM’s resubmitted the plans included an offer of £23,500 to mitigate some of the traffic impact, but planning review board councillors rejected the proposals once again.
There were more than 20 local objections, including from Park community council, detailing their views on the residential impact, concerns about privacy and hotel bedrooms overlooking neighbours’ gardens and further traffic congestion.
Councillor Margaret Paterson said parking in the area was ‘horrendous’ and while councillor Trish Robertson questioned the lack of sufficient disabled parking.
IPM said the functioning the care home also had an impact upon the residential amenity, and its plans included 13 parking spaces within the site, more than existed with the care home.
They produced surveys to show that there could be up to 23 on-street parking spaces available to cope with guest traffic.
The councillors dismissed the application by a majority, with councillor Laurie Fraser arguing that a small block of flats would be a better use of the site.
