Planning permission for a new care home to be built in Stevenage has been refused.

Muller Property Group wants to demolish a three-storey house in North Road and build a four-storey 76-bed care home, with associated parking, on the 0.37 hectare site.

Planning permission for the development, however, has been refused by Stevenage Borough Council.

In a report by the council's planning officer, it acknowledges that the delivery of the care home "would make a significant contribution towards meeting the Local Plan objective of providing 200 additional bed spaces in supported accommodation by 2031," and that it "is perhaps the best opportunity to ensure that this target is met".

However, the report goes on to say that the loss of daylight for a neighbouring property, in Daltry Road, "would outweigh the potential benefits of providing 76 high-quality care home beds in this location."

The Daltry Road property is home to a young adult with severe and complex disabilities, who occupies the room closest to the proposed care home.

The report says: "This room has been specially adapted to meet the needs of the resident, such that it is itself much more akin to a room within a care facility than a typical bedroom.

"The evidence available to officers shows that the main part of this room, which is served by two south-facing windows, would suffer a considerable loss of daylight as a result of the proposal, causing it to appear dark and gloomy.

"Irrespective of the fact that the secondary part of the room, which is adjoined in an open-plan layout, would be largely unaffected, it is considered that these conditions would make living conditions intolerable and this carries great weight against the proposal."

The report also says that the proposed development "would cause excessive noise throughout the construction and operational phases, resulting in intolerable living conditions" for the people living in this property.

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Additionally, the council's planning officer said the proposed development would deprive people living at another property in Daltry Road of privacy, "resulting in unacceptable living conditions".

The fourth reason why planning permission was refused is because "the applicant has failed to demonstrate that the proposed development would adequately deal with surface water runoff, which could result in increased flood risk to the site itself and elsewhere," the planning report says.