A 60-bed care home is proposed on the last parcel of the former St John Fisher school field in Chatham. Comments close on 12 October, with 16 parking spaces.

The last empty parcel of the former St John Fisher school site in Chatham would become a 60-bed care home under plans now open for comment.

Medway Council validated the application on Monday 21 September under reference MC/26/1787. It covers the grassed land north of Scotteswood Avenue, behind the old school entrance, and runs to about 0.42 hectares, roughly one acre. Neighbours have until Monday 12 October to comment (application record).

The applicants are Lovett Care Developments (Chatham) Ltd and Even Chatham Ltd. Their planning agent is Patrick Reedman of Even Group. No decision is due before the council’s internal target date of 21 December 2026.

What is proposed

The building would be three storeys with a flat roof, set back from Scotteswood Avenue behind a landscaped frontage. The planning statement sets out the detail:

  • 60 bedrooms for elderly and dementia care, all with en-suite wetrooms
  • 21 bedrooms at ground floor, 23 at first floor and 16 at second floor
  • about 3,152 square metres of internal floorspace, roughly 52 square metres a bed
  • lounges, dining rooms, clinic rooms and nurse stations on every floor
  • a hair salon, a cinema room, an activity lounge and a private dining room
  • 16 car parking spaces, including accessible bays and electric vehicle charging

Access would use the existing former school entrance off Scotteswood Avenue. The applicants say the home would create around 30 full-time equivalent jobs on site. They also promise a 10% biodiversity net gain through planting on and off the site.

The operator named in the papers is Lovett Care Ltd, founded in 2009, which the statement says runs homes in the North West, the West Midlands and Wales. It has no existing home in Medway.

The shortfall the applicants are pointing at

The case for the home rests on a needs assessment by the health and social care analysts Carterwood, submitted as an appendix to the planning statement. It is dated April 2026 and was written for a slightly smaller scheme of 57 beds.

Carterwood measures need on two bases, and the difference matters. A minimum market standard bedroom has an en-suite with a WC and a basin. A full market standard bedroom has an en-suite wetroom, so washing can happen in the resident’s own room. On a 2028 basis, for the Medway Council area, the assessment finds:

  • a net need for 1,079 full wetroom en-suite bedrooms
  • a net need for 425 bedrooms on the lower en-suite standard
  • within that, a need for 463 dedicated dementia wetroom bedrooms

The bigger figure is the one the applicants quote. It counts existing Medway care beds as unmet need if they lack a wetroom, which is why it is more than twice the other number. Both come from the same table.

Carterwood assesses existing Medway supply at 1,036 elderly en-suite beds, of which 382 have wetrooms, plus 73 beds already permitted and not yet built.

Medway care bed need on a 2028 basis: net need of 1,079 full wetroom en-suite bedrooms across the Medway Council area, net need of 425 bedrooms on the minimum en-suite standard, and 60 bedrooms proposed at the former St John Fisher school site in Chatham
Graphic by Medway Live. Source: Carterwood planning need assessment, April 2026.

Why the field is up for development

The site was the school playing field and amenity space. It carries a protected open space designation, Policy L3, in the Medway Local Plan 2003.

St John Fisher Catholic Comprehensive left the Maidstone Road site in 2022 and its replacement opened at City Way, Rochester, in 2023 under permission MC/20/2839. That school was built with a four-court sports hall, a three-court multi-use games area, an all-weather pitch, a 100m grass running track and a 9v9 grass football pitch. The applicants argue that this replaces the lost field, and that the council does not intend to carry the open space designation into its emerging local plan.

They add that the neighbouring supermarket development has already taken enough of the campus to leave the remaining grass too small for a pitch.

The rest of the campus

Permission was granted in January 2026 under MC/25/0753 for demolition of the old school buildings and a food retail store. The council’s own record describes it only as a food retail store in Use Class E(a). The care home applicants name the operator as Aldi, and residents objecting to a separate scheme on the site also refer to it as the Aldi supermarket. Building work is under way.

The Aldi permission secured £79,702 towards a Play Zone at Maidstone Road Sports Ground, quoted in the care home planning statement.

The third piece of the campus reaches a decision tonight. Wednesday 23 September, the Planning Committee meets at 6.30pm at the St George’s Centre, Pembroke, Chatham Maritime, to decide MC/26/0561. That is the conversion of No 79 Maidstone Road, the 1901 villa that became the school in 1964, into up to 11 homes, plus a block of up to 12 apartments behind it (agenda).

Officers recommend approval. The officer report records seven objections from six people, raising overdevelopment, overlooking, backland development and harm to the Maidstone Road Chatham Conservation Area. It reached committee only because those representations run against the officer recommendation, a referral route that disappears on 31 October.

The 23 homes would carry £181,947.42 in planning contributions, including £83,682 for open space, £43,443 for education and £19,112 for health.

What it means for you

If you live on Scotteswood Avenue, Cottall Avenue or the streets off Ingle Road, the care home is the application to read now. Comments close on 12 October. You can comment through the application page, and nothing had been submitted when we checked on 23 September.

Two points are worth checking against the drawings yourself. The site sits about five metres above the houses to the east, and the applicants say roughly 21 metres would separate the building from the nearest home. Sixteen parking spaces for a 60-bed home with around 30 staff is the other number neighbours tend to test, on a street that is one-way between the site entrance and Maidstone Road.

The site is in Flood Zone 1, the lowest flood risk band. It is about 50 metres from the Maidstone Road Chatham Conservation Area boundary at its nearest point.

We track new Medway applications weekly on our planning applications page, and the bigger decisions on Medway planning news.

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