Plans have been submitted to turn an run-down Clifton care home into council housing.
Laura Chambers Lodge, in Swansdowne Drive in the Clifton East ward, has been vacant since 2016.
Nottingham City Council had been planning to convert the building into temporary accommodation. However, the authority ultimately decided this was unsuitable.
Following changes in the government’s Right to Buy policy, funding was made available to use the site for the development of council housing.
The plan was approved at an Executive Board meeting in December 2024, and the authority has now submitted plans for the development.
In total the council’s housing service plans to build 12 family homes, and 40 apartments, subject to approval by council planners.
“Twelve two-storey family housing units are located along Tamworth Grove in the form of three terraces of four homes with a ginnel to the centre for rear access,” a planning statement says.
“This topology is typical of the local character and provides a practical solution where the ginnel offers access to rear gardens for bin storage. Each house has a parking space on plot with an electric vehicle charging point.
“The remainder of the site overlooking Clifton Central Flower Park will be maximised for apartments.
“The apartment footprint has been designed to sit between the existing mature trees which will provide some privacy but also shading in the summer.
“The apartments are four storeys with the upper story being set within the roof to reduce its overall scale. Here roof lights have been used to provide daylight to all rooms, the lounge having a rooflight that is extended down vertically within the eaves line to provide better views out.
“The apartments are arranged around three communal stairs, each with a lift. The communal areas serve a maximum of four apartments per floor with a maximum of twelve in total.
“There are no lengthy corridors, a ventilated lobby sits between the apartment front doors and the stairs, this arrangement helps to reduce anti-social behaviour, and a lift gives access for less able-bodied tenants.”
The vacant building has been costing the Labour-led authority £70,000 each year to look after and keep secure following its closure.
The council says it “rigorously investigated” the reuse of the existing building to convert it into individual flats.
However documents say the construction of the existing building has substantial concrete floors and walls that would have required significant structural alterations and additional support to make any meaningful alterations to the accommodation, and would have been financially unviable.
The final scheme was drawn up after the Labour Government agreed to pay back £10.5m in Right to Buy receipts to the council in October 2024.
The money had originally been paid to the former Conservative Government, which had imposed a condition requiring councils to use Right to Buy receipts within five years.
Cllr Jay Hayes (Lab), executive member for housing and planning, and the council’s chief executive, Sajeeda Rose, wrote to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to request the money be returned following a relaxation of the condition under the new government.
In total, £8.37 million from the returned money will be used for the scheme, on top of a further £1.4 million in Section 106 money, which is typically provided by the developers of other schemes in the city to make them more acceptable.
Cllr Hayes previously said: “Laura Chambers Lodge was due to be a site for temporary accommodation, but after [assessing] costs, it was deemed unsuitable.
“The new units will help to bring down our waiting list and move people out of temporary accommodation.”
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