St. Ives Country House Care Home
Ashley Heath, Dorset
Client: Care South
Town planning
Heritage
Graphic design
Environmental planning
Terence O’Rourke was appointed by Care South in March 2013 to provide planning and heritage advice on plans to replace the former 23 bed St. Ives Care Home at Ashley Heath near Ringwood, with a 60 bed care home, 14 close care apartments and four close care cottages together with a new vehicular access into the site.
Terence O’Rourke engaged in pre-application discussions with East Dorset District Council over draft plans, and subsequently appointed a range of consultants to deal with landscape, ecology, flood risk, tree, transportation, energy, noise and lighting issues. Using the results of baseline surveys and feedback from a public exhibition, the team worked closely with architects Carless & Adams Partnership to devise a site layout that:
Met Care South’s commercial requirements to deliver a 21st century care facility offering specialist nursing, residential and dementia care set in an attractive sylvan setting
Met regulatory care standards
Would facilitate a significant level of interaction between residents on site
Enable on-site staff to effectively deliver high quality care services.
Terence O’Rourke specifically demonstrated to East Dorset District Council that:
The existing care home was not a heritage asset and could be demolished
The proposed development was a C2 class development that did not attract an affordable housing contribution
The removal of 65 protected trees to facilitate the development could adequately be mitigated.
Pursuant to the completion of a section 106 legal agreement, planning permission was granted in September 2014. The care facility was constructed by Midas and was officially opened in 2017. The development was one of three finalists in the Best Care Facility category at the Pinders Healthcare Design Awards 2018.
Image courtesy Carless & Adams Partnership
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Terence O'Rourke is an award winning planning and design company, integrating these skills to help deliver exceptional projects.
Our team offers town planning, architecture, landscape architecture, urban design and environmental planning (including environmental impact assessment, heritage and ecology) services. We have a unique skillset and approach that deals creatively with challenging planning situations to deliver commercially viable solutions across all sectors of the economy.
We work with nationally and internationally known clients including:
BAE Systems, BMW Rolls Royce, Grosvenor, McLaren and Warner Bros., major housebuilders and infrastructure providers and have worked on high profile projects and sites such as the Chewton Glen Hotel and Spa Tree Houses, the Clay Country eco-community, the Goodwood Estate, Luton Airport, Silverstone Park, Mercedes-Benz World, Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden and Studio Tour – 'The Making of Harry Potter.'