Find, save and share Public Notices that affect you in the area.
Search the Public Notice Portal What is the Public Notice Portal?What is the Public Notice Portal?
The Public Notice Portal carries statutory public notices published in local newspapers and is the fastest and most effective way of finding out what is happening in YOUR neighbourhood.
Search the Public Notice PortalA residential care home in Blackburn, where officials can assess a parent’s ability to meet the needs of their child, has been given the green light.
Blackburn with Darwen Council approved the Certificate of Lawfulness application for the new family assessment centre off Eleanor Street, which is part of the huge 88-bed care home complex built in 2024 known as Acer Lodge.
The Ofsted-regulated assessment centre will take over an unoccupied part of the site with seven assisted living apartments, six of which will be used at the same time by either a parent and a child, or a couple and a child.
Each apartment will be occupied for up to three months by each family unit, as on-site carers and officials assess how parents or carers meet the welfare needs of their child.
This will then be used by Blackburn with Darwen Council or the family courts to inform any decision made in the best interests of that child.
Read more
Farcical Council meeting sees key decision postponed so they could watch World Cup
Hyndburn residents now given right to speak at council meetings
Mosque approved for historic Blackburn pub once part of Dutton's Brewery empire
In its planning application, Compassionate Children's Care & Support Ltd said: “The Family Assessment Centre will provide a domestic, residential setting in which infants and their parent(s) or primary carer can reside together for a temporary period of assessment.
“The property comprises seven self-contained apartments, each providing independent living facilities including kitchen, bathroom, and sleeping areas, allowing families to maintain normal day-to-day routines that replicate a home environment.”
Their application for a Certificate of Lawfulness allows them to forego the lengthy process of a full planning application, because Acer Lodge is already classified as being in the category for residential institutions – which can cover both elderly and children’s care facilities.
Further supporting this, the social care provider had previously been granted a certificate allowing them to turn the two-storey assisted living block into a children’s home, a plan which appears to have developed into the now-approved assessment centre.
Share