The saga of the former care home at Chestnut Walk in Hungerford has been rumbling on for nearly a decade. Closed in 2017, the original plan was that, by a joint venture (JV) between WBC and Sovereign (SNG) social-rent homes would be built instead. After years of largely inexplicable delay, it was finally admitted in 2025 that the scheme was not viable. At about the same time, the remarkable discovery was made that the building was actually in quite good condition and could be re-purposed rather than demolished.
That being the case, WBC then decided that its best use would be as temporary accommodation for people who were homeless. Hotel and similar solutions are very expensive and re-purposing Chestnut Walk in this way would, WBC estimated, save almost £600,000 a year. One obvious downside of this is that the town would not get the social housing it needs and was for so long promised.
Whether the social housing would have been viable were work to have started in 2017, why it was wrongly assumed all this time that demolition was the only option, why Hungerford Town Council (HTC) was on several occasions assured of this fact when it asked if the building could be put to some temporary use and how much this has all cost are important questions and ones we’ve posed (the Hungerford Area Weekly News column for 12 February 2026 looks in particular at the last of these), though so far without much response.
The curent issue, however, is the planning application for this re-purposing which was validated last month:
“26/00555/REG3 – proposed change of use from Class C2 (Residential Institution) to Class C1 (Hotel/Hostel) to provide supported temporary accommodation with onsite management and security measures, construction of new air source heat pump compound and cycle store and relocation of bin store at Hungerford Old Peoples Home, Chestnut Walk, Coldharbour Road, Hungerford RG17 0DB.”
You can see the application details by clicking here and entering the reference 26/00555/REG3.
The Planning Statement says that:
“The scheme will provide accommodation for up to 16 individuals across 12 self-contained bedrooms, with the flexibility to configure parts of the building into separate wings. This layout will allow the Council to create dedicated family units where needed, ensuring that households of different compositions can be safely and appropriately accommodated.
“The proposal has been designed to ensure the site remains adaptable, enabling efficient use of space based on presenting need while supporting effective property management and resident safeguarding.”
Hungerford Town Council will be considering the application at its next Environment and Planning Committee meeting on Monday 20 April.
Members of the public are welcome to make their comments on the application – click here for more information. This can, as the web page explains, in three ways: online; by email; or by post. Remember that comments made on social media, no matter how detailed, are not regarded as valid comments.
Anyone who is minded to comment is strongly advised to study the two-page Planning Statement and also this four-page FAQs document on Hungerford Town Council’s website (this was written by WBC and printed copies have been delivered to the neighbouring properties). It may be that your concerns are addressed in either of these.
As West Berkshire is the applicant, the matter will need to be determined by the Western Area Planning Committee (WAPC). Anyone who has registered an official (see above) comment on the application will be contacted by the Clerk in advance to explain how they can participate in this. The official determination deadline is 22 May 2026 so it’s advised that any comments are made by then. However, you should still be able to make comments until the matter is determined. Given the backlog of the WAPC’s workload, it’s unlikely that the matter will come to committee for some time.
The header image is taken from the Proposed Floor Plan on the application’s web page.
