A HEALTH and social care hub on Scotland’s popular NC500 route funded by the country’s richest man has received planning permission despite concerns over the design.
The £10.5 million new health and social care hub will be built at Tongue in Sutherland.
Anders Holch Povlsen’s (below) company Wildland Ltd – which owns estates in the area – is to fund the building of a care home and doctor’s surgery and then subsequently lease it back to NHS Highland and Highland Council.
Fashion tycoon Povlsen, who owns a dozen estates, is also Scotland’s largest private landowner.
The new health hub will replace two small residential NHS Highland care homes – Sinclair Court at Melvich and Caladh Sona at Talmine.
It will also include a “state-of-the-art” residential care facility and GP surgery.
The Scottish Sun now reports that members of Highland Council’s North Planning Applications Committee unanimously gave the green light to the development.
Granting the application meant putting aside a strong objection from Highland Council’s Historic Environment Team (HET) who said the new structure would adversely impact the A-listed church and nearby Tongue House Garden.
Highland Council is building the hub in a public-private partnership with NHS Highland and conservations and tourism organisation Wildland Ltd.
NHS Highland said it will be the “occupier, operator and responsible party” for the management and delivery of all the services provided from the new hub.
The objection from HET read said the hub’s design and siting was “over-scaled, visually dominant and incongruous”.
“The prominence is further emphasised by the excessive length and bulk of the proposed building, 190m long and two storeys plus high”, the objection said.
“HET feels the visual impact is still of one long industrial/commercial scaled block snaking across the landscape with repetitive upper façade treatment and overly solid base.
“In comparison the overall length of the church is 20m. The form and scale of the building is utterly incongruous to the Tongue community area.”
However, the development has been approved by a number of councillors with planers adding: “The chosen scale and massing of the new facility is considered acceptable, with the chosen layout helping to provide distinction within the design, breaking up the overall scale whilst ensuring an effective and smooth operation of the new facility when in use.”
Councillor Marianne Hutchison of the SNP said: “The new hub is vitally important to sustaining services in the north and west.
“The design team has worked carefully and creatively to increase the capacity and resilience of this remote and rural area.”
