140 villagers complained about plans to use former Northamptonshire care home as a hostel

A plan to use a former care home in a Northamptonshire village as a hostel has been refused.

The proposal to convert Westgate House in Eastcote Road, Gayton, had been opposed by approximately 140 villagers.

The home shut in early-2022 but was used as a hostel without permission from November.

The village’s councillors had opposed the project and planning officers said it would have been “incompatible” with the village’s character and left “isolated in open countryside”.

West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) planning officers told the building’s owners, Midlands Living CIC, to lodge an official application if they wanted to continue to use the building as a hostel.

Midlands Living CIC had said it wanted to house asylum seekers there, however Daventry MP Chris Heaton-Harris said in February that the Home Office had decided not to use the site.

The hostel had not been used for asylum seekers but for other unspecified occupants.

WNC said that was still an unsuitable use of the site. It said the area’s shortage of care home places meant it should be used for its original purpose.

The application was refused at WNC’s South Northamptonshire local area planning committee last Thursday.