SPACE for staff accommodation is being proposed for a West Dorset care home as part of an expansion plan.
The Casterbridge Lodge home at Winterbourne Steepleton is hoping to build a two-storey extension to provide extra-care accommodation and to make alterations to the main entrance and residential day room.
Landscape changes are also being proposed as part of the works along with changes to the current car parking layout which may add an extra five spaces to the existing twelve.
If Dorset Council agree the changes it will add about 336square metres to the existing space – roughly a third increase on the existing 34 bedroom suites and two day rooms, to provide 12 new bedroom suites and a further day room.
The plans also include two small, single-storey buildings, creating 4 bedrooms served by a communal bathroom, to provide short-term overnight staff accommodation. One of these is to the rear of the site, the other on the higher ground to the east, in the levelled area where a timber outbuilding was placed.
The changes will also mean an increase from the existing 37 full-time and 2 part-time staff to 44 full-time and 4 part-time.
The proposals ask for outbuildings to the north-west corner of the site to be demolished and the space used for staff parking, providing 4 spaces, with the parking to the front, near the entrance, reconfigures to provide further car parking spaces.
Public comments on the application can be made by April 14th. The application can be seen, in full, on the Dorset Council website – ref 2024/01024.
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