Former Stoney Ridge Hospital site care home plan approved

An application to develop a care home on the former Stoney Ridge Hospital site between Heaton and Cottingley was submitted to Bradford Council earlier this year.

The hospital was used to provide day services for people with learning disabilities until it was closed down and sold by Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust in 2017.

Since then the hospital, which lies within Green Belt, has been demolished.

And a planning application to build 13 detached houses in its place was approved in 2019.

Morrison Community Care Group was behind the application for the three storey care home, and said the facility would “include extensive communal facilities and high-quality landscaped grounds.”

The site of the former Stoney Ridge Hospital (Image: Newsquest)

Although the site has previously been developed, it is within the Green Belt – meaning there are more restrictions on what can be built.

The applicants said the plan would create 130 jobs as well as providing much needed accommodation for the area’s elderly.

Approving the scheme, planning officers said: “It is considered that the benefits derived from the development in terms of increasing the supply of residential care bed spaces, assisting with meeting unmet housing need and the economic benefits associated with the construction process and the on-going running of the facility, would clearly outweigh the harm the development would cause to the Green Belt.”