A LARGE expansion of a Lostwithiel nursing home could be on the cards after a planning application for its demolition and replacement was submitted to Cornwall Council’s planning department.

Cornwallis Care Limited, which operates the Meadowbrook House care home on Grenville Road in the town, is seeking to replace the current 42-bed care home with a new 36-unit ‘close care’ apartment building and a new 77-bedroom care home.

It comes amid plans for the company to transition to a ‘close care’ based model, with the proposed 36 apartments especially designed for residents to live as near to independently as they would prior to requiring a care home due to their current property not being suitable.

In the plans, the care home provider told Cornwall Council: “The brief has been developed with the client as they review their business and operating procedures, together with the changing advice and pressures encountered by an ageing population.

“The existing care home model receives people, often elderly and with a range of intensive care needs, that have lived independently for a number of years and then have a sudden transition to close care later in life.

“Often this is a result of living in their own home from young or middle age, often where they have raised families, worked, and become part of the community. Often these homes are unsuitable for adaptation or reduced mobility or come at a large expense without grant funding.

“Close care housing is intended to promote independent living into later life and become a recognised alternative to residential care. Close care is suitable for someone who has been diagnosed with a deteriorating condition or couples where one partner needs to be in the care home and the spouse does not.”

Care for those living in the new properties would be provided by Cornwallis staff in the adjacent newly proposed care home.

The company told planners that it needed to do the works as proposed as, in their view, their current Meadowbrook house site is ‘unsuitable to adapt’, adding that, if approved, the proposed development would take the form of three phases.

In the first phase, the new 77-bed care home would be constructed first, becoming operational prior to phase two, which involves the demolition of the current care home with phase three comprising of the construction of the 33 ‘close care’ apartments.

Previous proposals for the care home, which were approved but not implemented included a plan in 2019 to build a first-floor extension to increase capacity, the construction of a sheltered housing scheme and an extension to provide health care facilities, including a dentist.

The plans can be viewed on the Cornwall Council planning portal under reference PA24/01112.