By Joe Coughlan, Local Democracy Reporter
A Planning Inspector has ruled that a former family home should be turned into a children’s care home, despite dozens of objections from residents.
Bromley locals claim the dilapidated state of the property, in Clarendon Way, Chislehurst, led to it being taken over by criminals who used it as a cannabis factory.
What they claim has been poor maintenance of the building means they believe it will be unsuitable for a children’s home, and they say motorists speeding on the road could make it a dangerous location for kids.
Hillary Gray, 57, has lived in Clarendon Way for 23 years. She said: “It’s rundown now, it hasn’t been looked after. The people in there before were supposed to be a lady and a young child and it turned out to be a drug den. The police came and they stopped that, but we just don’t trust what’s going on over there.”
Police arrived to raid the building in March 2023, but there’s no suggestion the building’s owner was involved with or knew about any criminal activity.
An application to convert the house into a children’s care home was considered by Bromley council in April last year, submitted by Bithoms Support Services Limited.
The home would provide care for up to three children at a time, between the ages of 8 and 16. While Bithoms would run the home, the ownership of the building would remain the same.
Clarendon House, where rubbish started accumulating outside the house several years ago (Picture: Joe Coughlan/LDRS)
The proposal received 84 objections from residents and was refused by the authority. Councillors claimed the scheme would be out of keeping with the area’s residential character and the site was not close to public transport links or public services.
The decision was appealed by Bithoms and a representation against the appeal was made by residents. The legal counsel for the neighbours claimed the appellant lacked credibility and there were several safeguarding concerns following incidents with a previous children’s home in the area which had been badly run.
Furthermore, residents noted that another children’s home run by Bithoms in Medway had been rated as requiring improvement by Ofsted in an inspection in August last year, with the effectiveness of leaders and managers at the home described as being inadequate.
However, permission was ultimately granted by Planning Inspector David Reed last month, who said the proposal would help address the need for children’s care homes in Bromley borough and that there were no planning reasons for the site being unsuitable.
The decision report contested the authority’s claim the home would be an over-intensive use of the site, stating the use would be similar to that of a family with three children.
Another resident of Clarendon Way, who wished to remain anonymous, said they called the police in late February 2023 after smelling cannabis from the building.
They said: “We kept hearing noises very late at night and early in the morning. I could smell quite a lot of cannabis there and it was quite strong.”
They added: “The police came in and took all of the equipment away, took all the plants away. There used to be a mound of laughing gas cans on the street but the moment it got shut down, all of that disappeared.”
The building’s owner, Bithoms, the Met Police and Bromley council have been approached for comment.
Pictured top: Hillary Gray, who said the house has not been looked after for years (Picture: Joe Coughlan/LDRS)