A former care home can be demolished to make way for 22 new homes, as long as more of the houses remain permanently “affordable”.

Plans to get rid of 36-bed Doubleday Lodge in Glebe Lane, Sittingbourne, were approved by Swale council at a Planning Committee meeting on Thursday.

The home was closed in 2014 after a public consultation and has been empty ever since. Stonechart Property Ltd put in the application to knock it down and build homes to be managed by social landlord Moat Housing.

They would all be classed as “affordable” but under council policy, if the homes ever changed hands then just 10% of them would have to retain the status.

As a result, councillors voted to allow planning permission, as long as the developer committed to retaining 30% as affordable.

Councillors also heard about concerns raised by neighbour Roger Spencer over the management of a hedge on the site’s boundary. But he added that he would be pleased to see the empty building gone: “We’ve got no objections to whatever they want to build because anything is bound to be an improvement on what it is now.”

The committee voted unanimously to grant permission as long as conditions of affordable housing provision and border management were met.