Fay Ripley at the site set to be transformed into a 78-bed care home

SUPPORT THE CNJ: CLICK ABOVE TO ADD YOUR DONATION TO OUR BIRTHDAY APPEAL

BATTLE lines have intensified over a plan to build a new 78-bed care home on an empty site – which opponents have dubbed “The Dartmouth Park Shard” due to its scale.

Fay Ripley, who starred in the hit ITV drama Cold Feet, said: “It has the feel of a cruise ship, a monolith way too big for the area.”

Developer Harrison Varma insists the project, on the former Mansfield Bowling Club in Croftdown Road, has been mapped out sensitively and will answer a clear demand for places. The council is currently considering whether to grant planning consent.

Ms Ripley, who lives near to the site, said neighbours did not object to the concept of the development, but were horrified at the size.

“This is not us being Nimbys,” she said. “You will see this hospital far and wide, it will define the area, just as the Royal Free does in Hampstead. If the plans were for what is really needed, it would be a different conversation. We know the number one need here is genuinely affordable housing. “They have gone for something that is much lower priority.”

At its highest the new development will be five storeys, including a lower ground floor, but it has been given the “Shard” tag by opponents because of the dominant impact they say it will have. The bowling club shut in 2013 and a scheme for housing was given building permission after a saga which involved an appeal to the planning inspectorate. This was never built and Harrison Varma went back to the drawing board after buying the site in 2019.

Ms Ripley said that people in the surrounding roads were “100 per cent united” against the new proposals, adding: “This is a case of a developer looking to make maximum profits at the expense of an entire community. It is ugly with no connection whatsoever in what is around it.”

The land, now overgrown, has become a haven for wildlife, with neighbours spotting Muntjac deer frolicking in the sprawling open space.

Other objections received by the council focus on the impact of how the care home will operate. With no parking on site, objectors fear there will be extra pressure on already crowded side streets and the need for staff to access to the site 24 hours a day.

Developer Anil Varma told the New Journal he had offered part of the land to Camden Council for no cost and would build social housing, free of charge, on land earmarked for tennis courts. He claimed the offer was dismissed because neighbours objected, adding: “We have an obligation to look after older people as well as affordable housing. I have offered to build social housing and give it to the local authority.

“That would be a very good use, but because neighbours have fought to have it designated open space, I cannot help solve the housing problem a little this way.”

Mr Varma added: “Instead, we are building three tennis courts for privileged people to use on a Sunday. That is crazy – they could play on the Heath. I am on the record that I will give that land, free of charge, and build social housing, if the designation was different.”

How the new care home will look

And he disagreed that the new building would be too big.

“We are keeping the building broadly in the same place, on what is a slightly reduced footprint to what was previously passed,” he said, adding that he had once been a developer of luxury homes – but “had seen the error of my ways”.

Mr Varma continued: “Perhaps I should not have bought it in the first place but I felt it ticked all the boxes. Care homes are vital and the government should be building them as a matter of urgency. They are not.”

Objectors remain sceptical, however, with Ms Ripley adding: “The developer says a care home is needed. If so, offer it on a scale that is acceptable, and show how it will be run. This is about what is needed and what is fair and what is right. A giant care home is none of these things.”