Care Plus Group has swooped for a prominent new headquarters in Grimsby. The North East Lincolnshire health and social care provider has bought Westgate Park in a deal understood to be upwards of £1 million.

The three-storey, 23,000 sq ft former social housing partnership base was bought from London and Scottish Property Asset Management Limited. It will allow the organisation to bring together some of its provision, with it currently delivering a £26.2 million service from 16 different locations in the borough, via an 850-strong team.

The Val Waterhouse Centre in Kent Street, Grimsby, is the current administrative base for Care Plus Group, now in its 12th year of operation.

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A spokesperson said: “Care Plus Group is pleased to have recently purchased the Westgate Park building in Grimsby. We are excited to be able to use this, along with our current headquarters building, The Val Waterhouse Centre on Kent Street in Grimsby, as bases for our staff. We currently have staff based in various locations across North East Lincolnshire and will be using this acquisition as an opportunity to review our services to look at future co-location to aid integration and provide an enhanced offer to the residents of North East Lincolnshire, although no decisions have been made as yet.

“As we have only very recently taken ownership of the building, we are currently working with our contractors to undertake the necessary work to ensure it is secure and developed to meet future needs. We are in the initial planning phase around how we will use the building and which of our staff and services will operate from there. This is a positive move for Care Plus Group and will allow services which complement each other to be located closer together and provides us facilitates to meet the growth of some of our services which will ultimately benefit our service users and patients.”

Westgate Park, off Charlton Street, Grimsby.
Westgate Park, off Charlton Street, Grimsby.

Accessed through GP or healthcare professional referral, with some self referral, Care Plus Group is an employee-owned community benefit society, regulated by the Care Quality Commission and contracted by North East Lincolnshire Council, North East Lincolnshire Clinical Commissioning Group, the Home Office and the Department of Health.

Carl Bradley, director of Clark Weightman, acted for the vendor. He said: “I think it is the biggest office transaction since Wilkin Chapman moved to Cartergate House. The buyer is a local care and health orientated business with various premises in the town and this will give them the opportunity to create state-of-the-art facilities as an owner occupier, while continuing to deepen their roots in the town.”

Built in 2008 by developer Belgrave Land, social housing provider Shoreline was the first tenant. It then merged with Boston Mayflower in 2018, rebranding as Lincolnshire Housing Partnership. The lease came to an end this year, and LHP has recently moved to a unit that is part of Wilkin Chapman-dominated Cartergate House. This past week saw a announced.

Westgate Park looks over the A180 entrance to Grimsby, across the dual carriageway from Alexandra Dock, it is accessed from Charlton Street. Negotiations with potential tenants had been entered into following LHP’s decision not to renew, but London and Scottish Property Asset Management decided it didn’t fit with its strategy and started a sales process, Mr Bradley said. Terms were agreed early last month.