April Cottage

On behalf of our client Montpelier Estates, Q+A Planning secured approval in May 2022 for the development of a new Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) inpatient unit together with a specialist school, sports facilities, and allotments in the open countryside on land designated Green Belt. The CAMHS unit is to operate under a partnership agreement between Elysium Healthcare and the Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust with a focus on disordered eating. The new facility will ensure that the NHS are able to provide high quality care to young people who require an inpatient stay when they are at their most vulnerable.

Known as April Cottage, this development will transform the way acute mental health service is delivered in Surrey by bringing the community and inpatient services much closer together, improving the care experience for the individual and their families where it is critical that beds can be accessed as quickly as possible.

Q+A were required to build a detailed set of ‘very special circumstances’ that interrogated the need for the proposal, regional deficiencies in eating disorder provision and site-specific advantages in order to confidently present a case where the development would clearly outweigh the limited harm to the Green Belt. Officers fully accepted our justification and were able to issue a delegated approval in advance of the 13-week target date, enabling work to commence on this important scheme.

For any further information, or general enquiries, please contact Tom Hallett.