AN application to covert a former care home in Newton Abbot into a house of multiple occupancy (HMO) has been turned down for the second time.

Rosecroft Homes’ updated application to convert 28 and 30 Courtenay Road - the former Dunmore Residential Care Home - into several co-living, non self-contained units set across three floors has been rejected by Teignbridge District Council (TDC).

According to the planning statement for 25/01831/FUL, the units ‘will be offered as a mix of ensuite studios or bedrooms with shared bathroom/shower room facilities’.

‘For the avoidance of doubt, the rooms will be rented as single occupancy on a furnished basis and targeted to professionals and key workers’, the statement adds.

‘The proposed development represents an excellent opportunity to secure the reuse of the existing land and building for a high quality and much needed form of development’, the planning statement goes on to say.

But TDC turned the application down.

The council said: ‘The proposed change of use of part of the care home to large HMO and two flats, by virtue of no off-street parking provisions and unrealistic assumptions within the submitted Transport Assessment and the Addendum relating to the existing use and steep context of the surrounding routes, would result in significant increase in on-street parking failing to provide adequate vehicle parking provision contrary to policy S9 Teignbridge Local Plan’.

The decision comes after Rosecroft Homes’ initial application - made up of two separate, but parallel, applications 25/01014/FUL and 25/01012/FUL - were rejected in August.

At the time, TDC said the proposals would result in ‘poor residential amenity’ experienced by the future occupiers of some on the rooms by virtue of restricted access to natural light.

The council also cited on-street parking, or, rather, lack thereof, as a reason for its refusal.