Westminster City Council has given its backing to Squire & Partners-designed proposals for a 10-storey luxury care facility near the River Thames and Smith Square.

The practice’s plans for care-home operator Medici Lifecare will see the demolition of 1930s Art Deco block Dean Bradley House, which stands on Horseferry Road, to make way for the development. The eight-storey office building is not nationally listed, but is a local “building of merit” in the Smith Square Conservation Area.

Squire’s proposals are a rejig of a 2017 approval for the site for developer Mayfair Charities. That consent was for a new office, retail and residential block, but it was not implemented.

Members of Westminster’s Planning Committee on Tuesday granted Squire and Medici Lifecare consent for a “flexible” scheme allowing the new building to be used either as a care home or as a post-operative care facility with clinical and retail elements.

The care-home version would include 134 living units along with a library, restaurant, communal lounges and quiet rooms, therapy rooms, an art studio and a hydrotherapy pool. The alternative plan would offer 40 post operative care units, a hydrotherapy pool, 6,152sq m of space for clinical use, and two non-food shop units at ground-floor level.

Both versions deliver new structures with a gross internal area of around 10,360sq m – an uplift of more than 3,000sq m on the current building. Squire said its proposals were a low-carbon development that would deliver much-needed healthcare infrastructure in an all-electric building.

Partner Murray Levinson said the practice’s design took inspiration from the adjacent grade II-listed Belgravia House building, while its red-brick panels and Portland stone piers reflected styles found in the conservation area.

“Our design complements the grandeur of brick and stone buildings in the conservation area, where a tripartite elevation of a central stone bay is flanked by brick wings,” he said.

Toby Burgess, Head of Corporate Strategy and Property Development at Medici Lifecare said: “Successfully obtaining planning consent, for one of prime Central London’s few Landmark Healthcare Facilities, continues to demonstrate our ability to overcome the high barriers of entry within our healthcare model.”

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