Pilgrims Hospices can rebuild its London Road hospice with a new 12-bed inpatient unit. The council approved it on 2 November after 76 letters of support.

Pilgrims Hospices can rebuild its hospice on London Road in Canterbury. Canterbury City Council granted planning permission on Monday 2 November.

The charity will knock down its main hospice building and replace it with a new one on roughly the same footprint. The new building will hold a 12-bed inpatient unit, a therapy centre and a gym. The two Victorian villas facing London Road stay and will be modernised inside.

The council received 76 letters supporting the plans and no objections. The decision, for application CA/26/00178, was taken by planning officers under delegated powers, so it did not need to go to the planning committee.

What will be built

The council’s decision notice and officer report cover:

  • a new, mostly single-storey hospice building with a small two-storey section, in brick with a zinc roof
  • a 12-bed inpatient unit, which the transport assessment calls “a like-for-like replacement”
  • a new rear extension and replacement windows for 55 London Road, the Ann Robertson Centre
  • a workshop and fundraising store, bin and cycle stores, and an electricity substation
  • a new two-way road inside the site, with parking rearranged but no more spaces

To make room, the charity will demolish the old hospice building, a vacant care home building, a Victorian coach house and stable, and 55a London Road, a house in multiple occupation.

The transport assessment puts the new main building at about 2,050 square metres. About 80 staff work across the site on a typical day.

Pilgrims’ own update in March adds a sanctuary space, landscaped gardens with better access from the inpatient unit, air source heat pumps and solar panels.

Architect's visualisation of the garden side of the new Pilgrims Hospice building in Canterbury: a long single-storey building with a dark roof, glazed doors onto a lawn, a timber pergola and benches
An architect's visualisation of the garden side of the new building. Image: Pilgrims Hospices.

Why the planners approved it

The officer report finds that the new building would cause no harm to the Canterbury (London Road) conservation area. The new building sits outside it, in about the same place as the old one.

The coach house and stable are inside the conservation area and count as heritage assets. The report accepts that losing them is “harm”, but calls it low, because later changes have already stripped much of their interest. It says that harm is outweighed by a better site layout, central waste facilities and more efficient parking.

No consultee objected. Kent County Council’s highways, ecology and archaeology teams, and the city council’s heritage, trees and environmental health officers, all asked for conditions instead.

The Canterbury Heritage Design Forum neither objected nor supported. It welcomed keeping the two villas but called the new building “massive, and quite bland and suburban in design”. It also asked how the work would be phased so that care could carry on.

One letter, neither for nor against, questioned demolishing the house in multiple occupation, because it earns the hospice an income.

Keeping care going during the works

The charity says the work will be phased. Its statement of community involvement records “some concerns about the upheaval for patients and families” from people who came to its exhibitions in October 2025, which 131 people attended.

When it launched the project in March 2025, Pilgrims said “inpatient services will inevitably be affected during the construction period”. It also said that most of its care happens in patients’ homes and the community, and “this will continue without any disruption”.

The decision notice limits building work to 7.30am to 6pm on weekdays and 8am to 1pm on Saturdays, with none on Sundays or bank holidays. The charity has not yet published a start date or a timetable for the works.

How we got here

Pilgrims Hospices was founded more than 40 years ago by Ann Robertson, and London Road was its first home. It also runs hospices in Thanet and Ashford.

For years the charity planned to leave London Road for a new hospice at Saxon Fields in Thanington. It dropped that plan in March 2025, saying “external factors over a number of years” had stopped the build. It decided to modernise London Road instead.

That project is partly paid for by a £4 million gift from the Tory Family Foundation, which Pilgrims calls the largest single donation it has ever received. The charity says its services across east Kent cost more than £17.2 million a year to run.

What it means for you

  • The hospice stays on London Road. Patients and families will keep using the same site, with a new building in place of the old one.
  • Care at home is not affected. Pilgrims says its community and home care will carry on as normal during the works.
  • Work has not started. The permission lasts three years. Pilgrims posts updates on its news pages, and we will report the start date and any change to inpatient care when it is announced.
  • Neighbours: before any work begins, the charity has to agree a construction management plan with the council, covering lorry routes, parking, dust and noise.
  • To read the full plans, search CA/26/00178 on the council’s planning portal. Our Canterbury planning applications page explains how.

Sources