Rotherham: Children's care home approved despite objections

A former caretaker's house is to become a care home for young people in South Yorkshire, despite local objections.

Plans for Rotherham Council to convert the dwelling near Sitwell Junior School on Grange Road into a residential home for two children have been approved.

Some nearby residents objected due to its proximity to the school, while another warned of its "devastating impact" on his family life.

Staff would be "highly skilled" and on-site 24 hours a day, the council said.

The property would be operated as a "family home environment", registered by Ofsted, with two members of staff on site at any one time, planning documents showed.

A total of 11 objections were submitted by local residents on the grounds of insufficient parking, noise, anti-social behaviour, loss of privacy or "increased crime".

'Difficult circumstances'

One member of the public, Mr Bellamy, objected that the care home would be too close to the nearby school, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

"Social work professionals will tell you not to place a facility like this next door to a primary school," he told a meeting of the planning board on Thursday.

"When incidents happen, the audience is a large crowd of four, five and six-year-old children.

"The young people coming to live here are already known to have problems. They'll have difficult family circumstances or some from broken-down foster placements," Mr Bellamy added.

A second objector, Mr Hussain, added that it would "not be a family home" and he worried about racial abuse being directed at his family.

"The young people will have a mix of emotional and behavioural disorders. They will be a risk to each other, the staff looking after them, to the children at the school next door and to my family."

However, councillor Alan Atkin, chair of the meeting, told Mr Hussain: "You are being disrespectful to these children."

He added: "Any family could move next door to you and their children could have all sorts of problems."

An officer report stated the staff would be supported by regular supervision, with bespoke training to help the children they were working with.

Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.