Children’s home now allowed despite three rejections

A plan to open a children’s home in Wolverhampton that has been thrown out three times in the last two years will now be allowed to go ahead.

City of Wolverhampton Council twice rejected planning applications to convert the six-bed home in Codsall Road, Wolverhampton, into a residential home for children saying it was not needed but the govenrment’s planning inspectorate has now allowed the work to go ahead despite also rejecting it last year.

The local authority rejected a move in 2024 to convert the home for up to four children and then turned down another application in 2025 to use the home for up to three children last year.

The applicant Support and Sustain Care Ltd appealed to the government’s planning inspectorate in a bid to get the council’s ruling on a residential home for three children overturned but was unsuccessful.

The council had also rejected an application for a lawful development certificate for the children’s home which was appealed and has now been approved by a government planning inspector.

The inspector said noise and activity as well as the comings and goings from the residential home would not be “significantly different” from that of a family home.

“Domestic activities taking place in and around the proposed use are unlikely to be significantly different to what could occur in [its current] use,” the inspector’s report concluded.

“The use of the property would moreover be supervised and would also be subject to regulatory inspection.”

The government’s planning inspectorate had previously agreed with planners at City of Wolverhampton Council and said the need for the residential home had “not been adequately demonstrated.”

The planning inspector said in a rejection: “[In] the absence of local need for the proposal, the appeal scheme would result in the loss of family housing.

“Whilst I acknowledge it would be a loss of a single dwelling house it remains a loss nonetheless in an area which is unable to provide an adequate number of family houses for local need.”

City of Wolverhampton Council first rejected a move to convert the six-bed home into a residential home for up to four children in April 2024.

The local authority’s planners said the conversion would result in “greater levels of activity, noise and disturbance.”

In response, another application was then put forward to convert the home into a residential home for up to three children but that was also rejected by the council.

The council said the loss of a six-bed family home would ‘inhibit it from reaching its housing targets’ and the city already had enough accommodation for vulnerable children.

“There is not a demonstrable need for additional private children’s care home accommodation within the city of Wolverhampton, and insufficient justification has been provided to outweigh the loss of a family dwellinghouse amidst growing housing targets,” the council said in a report outlining the refusal.

A statement included with the application for the residential home said: “The proposed development would provide an invaluable facility for a small number of vulnerable and neglected young people, offering a caring and nurturing environment that they may never have experienced previously.”

By Christian Barnett | Local Democracy Reporting Service