Bexley care home appeal fails after resident-carer evidence unravels

A proposed children’s care home in Bexley has failed to secure a lawful development certificate after contradictory evidence left an Inspector unable to establish whether a carer would genuinely live at the property.

The Bexley care home appeal concerned 2 St Edmunds Close, where the applicant said the existing C3(a) house could be used within Class C3(b) for up to four young people aged 16 to 18 who needed care.

The resident-carer case changed between documents

The original application described one permanent employee as resident at the property and providing care and support.

The appeal evidence was less clear. One passage referred to a single full-time employee working a shift pattern to manage care over 24 hours, while another described one full-time carer as resident at the property for 24 hours.

Inspector Andrew Walker considered those accounts difficult to reconcile. If care was being delivered through shifts across the whole day, that logically pointed towards more than one member of staff. Yet the appeal material did not explain how many carers there would be, how the shifts would work, or whether any one carer would genuinely make the property their home.

That was not a minor staffing detail. It went directly to the applicant’s case that the proposed arrangement would remain within Class C3(b).

Why the household arrangement mattered

The Inspector referred to North Devon District Council v The First Secretary of State [2003] EWHC 157 (Admin). In that case, the court considered a children’s home where the children were unable to form a single household by themselves and care was provided by non-resident staff working shifts.

The Bexley appeal did not require a general ruling that every children’s home with shift workers falls outside C3(b). The problem was evidential: the applicant had not given a sufficiently coherent account of who would live there and how the household would operate.

There were also gaps around the needs of the young people and the extent of professional visits or other staffing. Taken together, the Inspector could not be satisfied that the proposal had been shown to stay within C3(b) without a material change of use.

Why the Bexley care home appeal failed

The appeal against Bexley Council’s refusal of the proposed lawful development certificate was dismissed on 21st September 2026.

The appellant also sought a full award of costs. That application was refused. The Inspector accepted there had been unexplained delay by the council beyond the statutory determination period, but found that the delay had not caused wasted appeal expense because the substantive dispute would still have required the appeal.

The planning story is therefore narrower than the broader C2 versus C3(b) debate. The applicant’s proposed use depended heavily on the household and resident-care arrangements, and the evidence supplied on that central point did not hold together. Planning Geek’s guide to Use Class C3 explains the wider C3(b) position.

Appeal reference: APP/D5120/X/25/3373810. Planning Inspectorate case page.