Squires gets go-ahead for luxury care home in Westminster

Westminster City Council has given its backing to Squire & Partners-designed proposals for a 10-storey luxury care facility a stone’s throw from the River Thames and Smith Square.

The practice’s plans for care-home operator Medici Lifecare will see the demolition of 1930s Art Deco block Dean Bradley House, which stands on Horseferry Road, to make way for the development. The eight-storey office building is not nationally listed, but is a local “building of merit” in the Smith Square Conservation Area. 

Squires’ proposals are a rejig of a 2017 approval for the site for developer Mayfair Charities. That consent was for a new office, retail and residential block, but it was not implemented.

Members of Westminster’s Planning Committee on Tuesday granted Squires and Medici Lifecare consent for a “flexible” scheme allowing the new building to be used either as a care home or as a post-operative care facility with clinical and retail elements.

The care-home version would include 134 living units along with a library, restaurant, communal lounges and quiet rooms, therapy rooms, an art studio and a hydrotherapy pool. The alternative plan would offer 40 post operative care units, a hydrotherapy pool, 6,152sq m of space for clinical use, and two non-food shop units at ground-floor level.

Both versions deliver new strctures with a gross internal area of around 10,360sq m – an uplift of more than 3,000sq m on the current building.

Squires said its proposals were a low-carbon development that would deliver much-needed healthcare infrastructure in an all-electric building.

Partner Murray Levinson said the practice’s design took inspiration from the adjacent grade II-listed Belgravia House building, while its red-brick panels and Portland stone piers reflected styles found in the conservation area.

“Our design complements the grandeur of brick and stone buildings in the conservation area, where a tripartite elevation of a central stone bay is flanked by brick wings,” he said.

Medici Lifecare co-founder and chief operating officer Mark Ellison said the new development would be a “state of the art” facility that helped to address need for social care in Westminster and which would provide training and jobs for more than 200 care-givers.

Because Squires’ proposals are taller than 30m in height, Westminster’s approval must be referred back to Lonon Mayor Sadiq Khan for a final decision.