Cygnet reveals Blackpool ambitions

Working with heritage design specialist Buttress, the healthcare firm wants to extend its Newton House facility, also adding a link to and repurposing a grade two-listed church as a therapy centre.

Plans now lodged with and validated by Blackpool Council outline how Cygnet, which acquired the 21-bed in-patient mental health facility Newton House a year ago, intends to expand.

The main goal is to add a further 14 en-suite bedrooms, to make a 35-patient facility, also adding in resident and staff facilities and changing parking and landscaping. A two-storey extension would be added to Newton House, with a one-storey block on the other side of the building linking to new facilities in the redeveloped church, some of which would be open to the public.

Buttress and Planning Potential lead the professional team for the project, around Newton House and the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes Church oat the Newton Road and Four Lane Ends junction.

Newton House’s capacity would go from 21 patients to 35. Credit: planning documents

The Shrine church was designated in 1984, and forms a lynchpin of the Stanley Park conservation area. The church closed in the 1990s and has been in the care of the Historic Chapels Trust since 2000. It is also on the Heritage at Risk register.

As set out in Buttress’s design & access statement, key design elements include:

• Creating a secure link to connect Newton House and the Church for secure and efficient movement between facilities.
• Forming new patient lounges with direct access to landscaped gardens to support wellbeing.
• A Social Enterprise Zone (SEZ) including a small patient run café inside the Church to provide an outward-facing community element.
• Therapy spaces designed for individual and group sessions.
• A family room to accommodate private visits and support networks.
• Staff meeting areas to facilitate growing operational needs including parking spaces.
• A new Activities of Daily Living (ADL) kitchen to promote patient independence.
• Stores and ancillary spaces.

Buttress’s DAS outlines how initial studies looked to incorporate all necessary accommodation for the therapy suite and cafe into a central pod within the centre of the nave.

However, this created a mass thought too imposing for the scale of the existing church, and the design was developed to provide a smaller, open and more flexible therapy space in the nave, which can be opened or closed depending on use and need. Thus sight-lines and views will be maintained from the church entrance to the altar.

Buttress has developed designs for the church’s interior, with Historic England input. Credit: planning documents

The church will have a public zone, located at the western end of the nave, accessed via the existing church entrance. This area will house the SEZ with a small café, creating a community-facing element while retaining the original entrance and lobby for public use.

The area around the chancel and transept will be a private zone, providing patient-focused spaces including a meeting room, family area, and ADL kitchen with direct garden access.

Documents relating to the project can be seen on Blackpool’s planning portal, reference 26/0064.