- Decision
- dismissed, 7 September 2026
- Decided by
- Planning Inspector: Eleni Marshall
- Authority
- West Northamptonshire (East Midlands)
- Appeal reference
- 6011524
- Application reference
- 2025/5109/FULL
- Procedure
- written representations
- Development
- Change of use of C2 care home to sui generis HMO for up to 32 persons
- Homes
- 1
- Site context
- inside settlement
- Green Belt
- No
- Framework applied
- August 2026 NPPF
- Determinative policies
- P3
- Development plan policies
- West Northamptonshire JCS 2014 H5, Northampton Local Plan Part 2 2023 Q2, HMO SPD 2019
- Main issues
- neighbour living conditions and character; occupier amenity
Summary
Conversion of a single-storey care home into a 32-person HMO in a residential area. Dismissed because of the intensity of independent comings and goings. The housing benefit was "limited", since the building is already residential (C2) and an HMO counts as one unit, and the harms "substantially outweigh" it (DL ¶15). This is S4-style wording, though S4 was not named. DM7 was cited to leave fire safety to other regimes (DL ¶18).
What made the difference
Scale of occupation, compared with the managed care-home baseline. Compliance with the SPD's site-count concentration test did not help, because one 32-person HMO is itself a concentration (DL ¶14).
Policy findings
Policy codes are those of the National Planning Policy Framework (August 2026) unless a development plan is named.
| Policy | Finding | Weight | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| P3 | fail | 32 independent occupants' comings and goings far exceed coordinated care-home activity; harms neighbours and residential character (DL 7-8, 12); no Framework policy named — code mapped by harvester | |
| HO7 | benefit | limited | care home already counts in supply and HMO counts as one unit — "limited" weight; adverse impacts "substantially outweigh the benefits" (DL 15) |
| L2 | neutral | effective use of underused buildings "should not be pursued in a manner which would fail to provide acceptable living standards for neighbours" (DL 16) | |
| DM7 | neutral | fire safety left to HMO licensing/building regulations (DL 18) |
Key facts
- Maximum 32 occupants; below SPD 10%-in-50m concentration test by site count but itself a concentration (DL 13-14)
- Parking survey showed ample on-street capacity; amenity space adequate (DL 9, 11)
- Costs application decided separately (DL 3)
Sources
This note is one of the decisions behind the NPPF 2026 Navigator, which shows how each Framework test has been applied across all the decisions in the database. Also available as Markdown.