Plans have been approved for a care home to replace a Volvo garage in Tonbridge.

The Hildenborough Group Volvo dealership in Tonbridge Road, which comprises of a showroom, repairs workshop and garage, will be torn down to make way for a 75-bed nursing home for the elderly.

The new development, which sits next to the Half Moon pub, will be up to 2.5 storeys high, with accommodation in the roof space, and the design includes bay windows, chimneys and asymmetrical front gables, which are characteristic features within the area.

Parking will be across two areas, with an entrance off Tonbridge Road providing 20 spaces and a further 12 bays accessible from Half Moon Lane.

Joint developers, Natabi Hildenborough Limited, Charles Arthur Slaughter and Berkeley Burke Trustee Company, with also plant trees on the site, which has almost no foliage at present.

Internally, the building will be divided up into the 75 bedrooms, plus communal areas, staff rooms and reception areas, as well as special-assisted bathrooms for disabled residents.

After Woolf Bond Planning submitted designs drawn up by KWL Architects in February, several concerns were raised by residents, including insufficient parking, visual intrusion and the local area being unable to cope with more people.

However, others felt the care home would be a welcomed addition to the community, which has a large elderly population and highlighted it would also provide more jobs.

Plans were approved at a meeting of Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council's area one planning committee last week, subject to conditions.

These include the stairwell windows being obscured to protect neighbours' privacy.

The approval come almost a year after High Hilden care home, which was just a mile away from this plot, closed in August due to financial difficulties.

Representative for Hildenborough ward, Councillor Mark Rhodes, says there was "no real reason to turn the application down".

He said: "The Volvo garage has caused problems with parking in nearby streets, traffic out the front of it wasn't always good, and the car transporter used to park up on the side of the road and get in the way.

"The new care home will create some jobs and I think it will sit on the plot nicely."

Mr Rhodes added: "We are all getting older and living longer and at some stage some families will be looking for a care home."

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