PLANNERS have overwhelmingly approved a controversial scheme to redevelop one of Wellington’s most sensitive town centre heritage sites.

The Court and Popham House, between Courtland Road and Mantle Street, can now become a 28-property housing estate.

Taunton-based Gadd Properties won planning permission at the third time of asking after compromising with Somerset Council by reducing the number of new homes by one and agreeing to preserve more of the grade two listed The Court.

The Court will be converted into nine two-bedroom apartments, while Popham House, which was added to the site in the 1950s, will be demolished to make way for 19 houses.

Members of the council’s planning committee voted nine to one to support case officer Anthony Pick’s recommendation to approve the plans.

The permission was subject to Gadd agreeing a section 106 legal agreement within six months which would see one house sold as ‘affordable’ at 70 per cent of market value and the firm pay £14,031 toward NHS provision in the town, £125,287.68 for children’s play facilities, and £191,706.88 to help expand education capacity.

An on-site public-art scheme will also have to be created to reflect the history and former use of The Court, or instead, if agreed by the council, a sum of money paid for it to be provided elsewhere.

A parallel planning application to approve the changes to the listed building was also approved by councillors by eight votes to two.

The former 74-bed The Court and Popham House nursing home complex has been vacant since Covid, when Gadd bought it from the council.

The Court closed in 2018 not long after the Care Quality Commission issued a scathing report on the findings of an inspection of the care home.

There were more than 90 letters of objection to Gadd’s plans and only one in support.