Care home set for flats development (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Former nursing home building gets green light to be converted into nine apartments

10:40am Monday 11th June 2012 in News By Jonathan Redhead, Ilkley/Otley Reporter

A former care home for the elderly, which closed after the owners went into administration, is set to be transformed into nine flats.

Last autumn, 22 residents, including 108-year-old Daisy Rayner, were forced to move into new homes when Fezdene Limited, which owned the Franklyn, in Easby Drive, Ilkley, suffered financial difficulties.

The home closed, but now it is likely to be given a new lease of life with an application to turn it into the flats recommended for approval at a meeting of Bradford Council’s Keighley and Shipley area planning panel this week.

A report to the panel says the plan should be backed by councillors, despite six objections from local residents and ward councillors Anne Hawkesworth and Martin Smith, who claim the application amounts to overdevelopment in the Ilkley Conservation Area.

However, the report backs the plans, submitted by law firm Candelisa Thorpe Arch LLP, subject to several conditions including details of materials and a tree protection plan.

“The impact of the amended scheme has been assessed and it is considered that it will have no significant adverse effects on the local amenity, the amenity of occupiers of neighbouring properties, highway safety, protected trees or the character and appearance of the Ilkley Conservation Area,” the report says.

Councillors on the panel will meet at 10am in Keighley Town Hall on Wednesday to discuss the application.

New homes were found for all the former residents of the Franklyn care home, including Mrs Rayner, who is now 109 and lives at Hollycroft care home in Hebers Ghyll Drive, Ilkley.

She is currently believed to be the 15th-oldest living person in the UK.

The Franklyn, a Victorian home, was converted into a care home for the elderly during the 1980s after a large two-storey extension was added to the building.