Plans for a new children’s home have been approved by Bromley Council, with the service delivering savings of up to £400,000 a year for the authority.

The new space would provide care for five young people in the borough as the cost of placements for the council reportedly grows.

The proposal was approved by the authority’s executive committee at a meeting on November 27.

The site of the new service has not been publicly revealed but council documents claim it is within the Chislehurst area and functioned as a private children’s home until eight months ago.

Officers said that the authority decided to make a competitive offer for the property swiftly as it was already subject to an agreed sale to a private care home operator.

They noted that while the agreed purchase price was greater than the market value of the property, the space holds more value to the council than a typical purchaser.

The report said: “Bromley, as with other councils, are experiencing supply issues in terms of procuring suitable placements for children.

"This has led over the last few years to significant increases in placement costs. It is envisaged by the service that having in house provision, either running it in house or contracting out the running of the provision, will reduce costs by a minimum of £2,000 per week per placement.”

It added: “Assuming a five-bed placement and an 80 per cent occupancy rate, this would lead to a reduction in placement costs of circa £400,000 per annum.”

Council officers said in their report that the number of Bromley children in care had risen from one to 16 in the past two years, with the number of children placed in a residential home rising by four per cent in five years.

They added that nearly half of these placements cost the authority over £8,000 a week due to special requirements, with many children being placed outside the borough.

The report said: “Given the increasing need and exponential rise in the cost of care, securing a local authority owned, Bromley based, residential provision will support with managing costs and the availability of suitable placements for some of our most vulnerable young people.”

Plans for a new dedicated children’s home in the borough were put forward by the Labour Group in February this year at a cost of £3.15m as part of its alternative budget. While the budget proposal was not approved, the plan to bring care home services back in-house was supported by the Lib Dem Group.

Conservative Councillor Colin Smith, leader of the council, said in response that the council was looking at options for a new children’s home and that opening one in the borough was a ‘no brainer’.

The new children’s home is planned to be running within a year given the current timeframe for registering with Ofsted.