Plan for new Scarborough Mencap building with café, office, and accommodation granted approval

On Tuesday, April 4, the construction of a new Mencap facility with meeting spaces, a café, and a shop at its existing site at 60 Valley Road in Scarborough was approved.

The applicant, Scarborough and district Mencap, seeks to improve the quality of life for people with a learning disability and said its current site was “unfit for purpose”.

The learning disability charity has been granted permission for a main, single-storey building, with the first floor containing an office and administrative facilities for the centre.

As the site slopes from west to east, it will dig into the site to obtain a single-level floor at ground level.

According to the plan, the building will be kept as a single-storey building on the Valley Road boundary along with the triangular reception area and foyer with plans for a possible green roof over the whole of the area.

The single-storey area will provide accommodation for toilets, showers, changing rooms, a sensory room, and a meeting room while the garden area will be re-landscaped with a wall screen to provide privacy to the garden.

The site will also include accommodation on the eastern side, comprising two large halls with the residential accommodation set to provide one and two-bedroomed flats.

The planning application states: “As the idea for this development is to provide land for housing, in order to finance the scheme, the access road will provide areas off it for parking for the housing.”

The café for the users of the facility will also operate as a teaching facility and will lead onto a landscaped patio.

The organisation provides a number of services and activities including care for children via play activities, supporting children and their families during the transition from children’s services to adults’ services, and advice and support for parents and carers through weekly parents’ groups, regular coffee mornings, and fundraising events.

The site also includes a public amenity area, comprised of trees and shrubs, which is owned by Scarborough Borough Council and the owners of the site had expressed an interest in purchasing it for use by Mencap.

However, according to the application, it has “not met with any success”.

Mencap is a national organisation operating across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, “leading and influencing change for the 1.5 million people with a learning disability in the UK”.