It comes as Enfield Council struggles to find local placements in the borough, reports Joe Ives, Local Democracy Reporter

Children (credit Juliane Liebermann via Unsplash) — Photo by Juliane Liebermann on Unsplash

Plans have been submitted to Enfield Council to create a new family-style children’s care home which could help address “severely limited” facilities in the borough.

The proposals would see a house and an adjacent property in Tottenhall Road, Palmers Green, converted into a children’s care home that would provide 24-hour care to up to four children between the ages of 13 and 15.

There would also be a separate facility within the home which would be able to provide dedicated support for a single child.

It comes at a time when the local authority has struggled to place children in care homes within the borough. In March, the council’s cabinet agreed to spend up to £1.5million setting up a new care home for children with complex needs in a bid to address its “severely limited” service.

In a report published ahead of that decision, council officers said the lack of council-owned facilities had meant that more than 90% of the children who need them have been placed outside the borough. This lack of capacity also led to the local authority accidentally sending two children to unregistered placements in the past five years, the report said.

The newly-submitted planning application, submitted by Ahmet Kobra and Courtney Dawson on behalf of MZA Planning, appears to come as a result of the council’s plans to address these issues.

A covering letter submitted with the application describes how, at full capacity, the main area of the home would have a maximum of four children and two staff on-site. The “dedicated team of support staff” would work in twelve-hour shifts between starting at 8am and 8pm, with a “sleep-in carer” present during the night shift.

MZA, a consultancy based in Chiswick, London, says the home would support children “with day-to-day living and emotional wellbeing”. This would include accompanying the cared-for children to school, appointments and “recreational activities”, alongside “social outings in keeping with interests and routines of children of a similar age”.

The applicant also argues that the home would support children “to develop life skills, build positive relationships and engage with education”. In addition, they say it would provide “a safe, nurturing and stable home environment where children can thrive”.

If granted planning permission, the space would see children and carers living together and sharing “all communal facilities, including the kitchen, dining room, lounge, bathroom and garden space”. This means that staff would cook all meals at the home and staff and children would eat together “as a family unit”.

The home would also receive “occasional visitors”, including Ofsted inspectors and up to two visits per month from social workers “in a manner comparable to a normal family household”.

The plans, which have not yet been approved, were submitted to the local authority in early April. The applicants say the work would not involve any changes to the outside of the properties and that “there will be no signage or other indicators of non-residential use”.

As the new children’s home would mean changes to more than one property it has been submitted under two separate applications. These can be viewed on the council’s planning portal using references 26/01395/CEA and 26/01396/CEA.

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