More than 100 objections to plans to convert four-bed detached house into children’s home

More than 100 people have objected to plans to convert a four-bedroom detached house on the outskirts of Bury into a children’s home. The council’s planning committee will decide next week on proposals from Orchid Care Limited, a children’s residential care business, to change the use of the house on Rudgwick Drive, Brandlesholme.

A report to members of the committee said the house would be used as an Ofsted registered residential home for up to three children between the ages of seven to 18. Each young person would have their own bedroom. The house would have two staff members present during the day and two overnight.

The report said a registered manager will visit and the property and it would be staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, operating on a 12-hour shift basis. There would also be a home manager, who would be in attendance during typical office hours.

The report sates: “Orchid Care Limited seek to offer the best possible outcome for all children and to prepare them for adulthood. Children would live as a family would, as far as is practicable.

“The operators have appropriate qualification in social care and management, they and their staff are trained in safeguarding, challenging behaviour, moving and handling and risk management.” The report said that Orchid Care operates another children’s care home in the area, at Trimingham Drive, just a few hundred metres from the proposed new home.

The report refers to a recent regulator inspection at those premises. It said: “The applicant has informed officers that at the time of the Ofsted report, that home had been through an unsettled and testing period for a number of reasons.

“However, since then they have advised that Orchid Care have sought to rectify and