Brighton cancer support centre given approval

A charity is to build a support centre for cancer patients on the site of a former Brighton children’s home.

Macmillan Cancer Support has been given planning permission for what is believed to be the first centre of its kind in Britain.

The £6 million scheme will mean demolishing Rosaz House in Bristol Gate, Kemp Town, across the road from the main Royal Sussex County Hospital site. The building next to it will also be knocked down.

Rosaz House used to be a children’s home and has been used more recently for staff training and doctors’ accommodation by Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust which runs the Royal Sussex.

In its place Macmillan is to put up a horseshoe shaped building to provide non-clinical services to patients and their families. The scheme includes 25 parking spaces.

The lower ground floor will be mainly for staff – offices for managers and for radiotherapy and research nurses.

The upper ground floor includes quiet rooms, therapy rooms, a volunteer room, a café and a hair salon where patients can have wigs fitted.

The centre will provide counselling and financial advice and non-medical therapy for patients and their families.

The building is also expected to be a venue for support groups and to contain offices for cancer services including the Macmillan team.

Solar hot water systems and rainwater harvesting are among the design features enabling the building to be classed as designed to “excellent” national environmental standards.

Councillor Phelim MacCafferty, chairman of the Brighton and Hove City Council Planning Committee, which approved the scheme, said: “The council is very keen to see better healthcare facilities for the city.

“This centre will be a huge benefit in terms of helping cancer patients and their families to cope with the illness.

“We should feel proud and fortunate that we’re getting the first such centre in the country.”

Demolition work is scheduled to start in the spring and the new centre is due to take about 18 months to build.