Controversial plans to build a new care home in Binfield are set to be approved despite a number of objections from residents.

The council received 35 comments protesting the potential opening of a 12-bedroom NHS mental-health care centre following the planned demolition of Holly Cottage on London Road.

One resident wrote to the council: “If the planning application was successful I would plan to sell my property and move elsewhere.”

Another wrote: ”As a family we moved to Binfield for a leafy, safe and pleasant surrounding, if the plans were to be approved this will scupper our dreams.”

The care home would house mental-health patients and would have eight car parking spaces, as well as a kitchen and dining room, communal lounges, laundry, office, meeting room and toilet on the ground floor.

Residents who wrote to the council were concerned with potential anti-social behaviour from the home’s mental-health patients.

Council inspectors determined that residents’ concerns about anti-social behaviour would be a “material consideration”, but an NHS report produced for the council read “all potential residents are assessed by the local authority or NHS clinical commissioning group before being referred to us.

“Any person who is not considered to be safe to live in a community setting would not be referred to us at this stage.”

Other concerns included the number of parking spaces, with several residents describing the proposed eight spaces as “inadequate”, while other residents were worried about the new property being “overbearing”, as it would be “materially larger” than Holly Cottage.

Binfield Parish Council recommended that Bracknell Forest Council (BFC) refuse the plans and BFC also received a petition with the signatures of 23 residents objecting to the proposals.

The East Berkshire Clinical Commissioning Group sent a letter of support to the council in relation to the application, which read: “East Berkshire CCG are looking at the housing provision available locally to support people with mental health needs, especially those who provide support for people with long term needs.

“We would be pleased to support in principle an application to provide such housing provision in Bracknell.”

However several residents pointed out that the EBCCG response, sent in April 2018, supported the creation of a mental-health facility in Bracknell, but not specifically the facility on London Road in Binfield.

Other residents commented on how this new property could negatively affect house prices in the area,  how it could increase traffic congestion on London Road given developments are ongoing at Blue Mountain golf course and at Amen Corner, and how it could also disrupt a badger corridor near the site.

The proposed site is located opposite a care home for the elderly and for dementia sufferers.

However a council report concluded that despite the number of objections it received, “any harm arising would not be so great as to justify refusing the application.”

Councillors are set to approve the application at a meeting of the planning committee on Thursday, November 8.