The Planning sub-committee of The Knowle Society was approached by Sunrise Senior Living, a Care Home Company started in the U.S.A. Sunrise has twelve homes in the U.K. including one in Edgbaston and one opened recently in Solihull. The company has now acquired the 2.2 acre site on Warwick Road formerly belonging to Parkridge builders. It tells us it has signed an unconditional contract and intended to complete the purchase in August 2007.
Sunrise held a public meeting in the Greswolde Hotel early in 2007 to explain the proposals to all and sundry and to answer any questions and to listen to comments. Depending on the outcome, it will then go to planning and if successful, intends to start on a 17 month building programme late this year.
The idea is to erect two buildings on the site, the one on the left (south) side to be a 60 bed residential home and the one on the north side to be a 50 bed nursing home. The professed ethos of the company is to provide an up-market care home with catering on a hotel basis at a cost for the residential home approaching double that of other homes in the area. The homes are aimed at people who have substantial insurance policies covering the position or substantial funds of their own.
The one big plus that can be seen at this stage is that we will not be facing the building of the mini-roundabout which was a feature of the Parkridge plans.