Former Alnwick care home set to become luxury apartments under latest plans

The application, which has been submitted to Northumberland County Council, relates to the redundant Ravensmount Care Home, on Alnmouth Road.

Closed for a number of years now, proposals to convert the building into a boutique hotel were given the go-ahead in May 2016, but that permission expired earlier this year.

A design and access statement, which forms part of the latest plans, explains that ‘the owner was unable to complete the work and the project was shelved’.

It adds: ‘Ravensmount Care Home has been closed for a number of years and is in need of refurbishment. It is currently vacant and at risk of vandalism and the elements.

‘Our proposals have been designed to create a better environment for the local community.’

The former care home, which is described as ‘an attractive and well-designed period building’ that ‘fits in well with the surrounding properties’, would feature three large apartments on the ground and first floors and two on the top floor.

Five of the flats would be three-bedroomed, two would have two bedrooms and there would be a single one-bedroom apartment.

A second lift would be added and the care home-type corridors removed and incorporated into the new properties.

‘Its conversion will improve the quality and appearance of the locality,’ the statement says.

The old laundry and timber outbuildings, which have reached the end of their life, would be demolished.

Back in December 2015, it was revealed that the care home was to close amid financial difficulties sparked by a critical inspection report earlier that year.

It had been given the lowest rating of inadequate following a visit by the Care Quality Commission in May, but while a new operator had taken over in the aftermath, a referral suspension remained in place, meaning the low occupancy could not increase.

Plans for a two-storey, three-bedroom house set into the hillside on land at Ravensmount were unanimously approved by the county council’s planning and performance committee in January 2016.