Objections to children’s home planned for former site of ‘cannabis factory’

By Joe Coughlan, Local Democracy Reporter

A planning inspector has ruled that a former family home should be turned into a children’s care home, despite dozens of objections from residents. 

Bromley residents claim the dilapidated state of the property, in Clarendon Way, Chislehurst, led to it being taken over by criminals who used it as a cannabis factory.

Hillary Gray, 57, who has lived in Clarendon Way for 23 years, said: “It’s rundown now, it hasn’t been looked after. 

“The people in there before were supposed to be a lady and a young child and it turned out to be a drug den.

“The police came and they stopped that, but we just don’t trust what’s going on over there.”

Ms Gray said she only became aware about the alleged criminal activity in the house when the police arrived to raid the building in March 2023. 

There’s no suggestion the building’s owner was involved with or knew about any criminal activity.

An application to convert the house into a children’s care home was considered by Bromley council in April last year, submitted by Bithoms Support Services Limited. 

The home would provide care for up to three children at a time, between the ages of eight and 16. 

While Bithoms would run the home, the ownership of the building would remain the same.

The proposal received 84 objections from residents and was refused by the authority. 

The decision was appealed by Bithoms and a representation against the appeal was made by residents. 

The legal counsel for the neighbours claimed there were several safeguarding concerns following incidents with a previous children’s home in the area which had been badly run.

Residents also noted that another children’s home run by Bithoms in Medway had been rated as requiring improvement by Ofsted in an inspection in August last year, with the effectiveness of leaders and managers at the home described as being inadequate.

But, permission was ultimately granted by Planning Inspector David Reed last month, who said the proposal would help address the need for children’s care homes in Bromley and that there were no planning reasons for the site being unsuitable. 

Another resident of Clarendon Way, who asked to remain anonymous, said the house was originally a family home but later became derelict. 

They said they called the police in late February 2023, after smelling cannabis from the building.

They said: “The police came in and took all of the equipment away, took all the plants away.

“There used to be a mound of laughing gas cans on the street but the moment it got shut down, all of that disappeared.”

The local said that shortly after the police raided the property, several houses on the street temporarily lost power after the electricity supply was disconnected. 

They said: “An electrician said that house could have burned down because they basically just wired the house up to the skies to put the lights in for growing cannabis.”

A spokesman for UK Power Networks, which manages the electricity infrastructure in the area, said its engineers attended a property in Clarendon Way, Bromley on April 16, 2023, at the request of the landlord to disconnect the electricity supply for safety reasons.

He said: “This needed a 20-minute power isolation to 16 properties from 9.05pm and we apologise for the inconvenience caused.

“It is very dangerous to interfere with electricity distribution equipment.”

HM Land Registry documents show that the owner of the house has been the same since October 2016. 

The building’s owner, Bithoms, the Met Police and Bromley council were approached for comment but had not responded at the time of publication.

Pictured top: Hillary Gray, 57, said the house has not been looked after for years (Picture: Joe Coughlan)