Proposals have been submitted to Renfrewshire Council to transform the site of the derelict and partially demolished former St Joseph’s Nursing Home just outside Lochwinnoch.

A planning application has put forward for 25 new-build retirement flats in a three-storey block with facilities including a concierge and communal lounge.

Also proposed is the conversion of the 1940s chapel on the site, west of Corsefield Road, into five retirement flats with associated roads, parking and landscaping.

The planning application has been put into planners by Convery Prenty Shields Architects on behalf of St Philips Care Group Ltd.

An application for listed building consent has also been submitted in relation to plans for the C-listed chapel.

According to the plans, the properties would be marketed to the over 55s and there would be a total of 38 parking spaces.

The access road would be shared with Forest View School.

The development site is brownfield land just within the southern boundary of Clyde Murshiel Regional Park, comprising the former nursing home, which closed in 2005 and its landscaped gardens.

Its complex of buildings included an early 19th century Tudor style mansion formerly Garthland House, which was sold in 1935 to the Mill Hill Foreign Missionary Society, becoming the St Joseph's College for Missionaries.

The house was extended to the north in 1936 with the addition of the three-storey dormitory block which is the subject of a Listed building consent to demolish and further extended to the south in 1943 with the addition of the chapel.

Between its closure and the present day, the building has been subject to extensive vandalism, theft and arson due to its relatively remote location, “rendering it unsafe and requiring selective demolition”.

At present, only the 1936 Dormitory block and the chapel remain standing.

Consent to demolish the dormitory block due to its unsafe condition, however, was granted in January 2022.