A former police station and care home site will be knocked down to make way for sheltered housing after new plans were given the green light.

The now-empty Great Missenden Police Office and Chalk Leys Care Home, in the High Street, will be demolished and a sheltered housing scheme, with 28 apartments and four houses, will be built in its place.

Developers said the accommodation will be restricted to residents aged over 60 and will be made up of 19 two-bedroom apartments, nine one-bedroom apartments and four two-bedroom terraced houses in two and three-storey buildings.

The application received a number of objections, with residents raising concerns about the design of the building, loss of light and privacy, and the overall size of the building.

The Great Missenden Village Association said while it supported the need for housing on the land, they felt the “sheer size, height and scale” of the proposed apartment block represented an overdevelopment of the site.

They also criticised the “inadequate” parking provision, saying that 23 bays for 32 homes, including two disabled spaces, would not even be enough for residents, with guests and other visitors having to find parking somewhere “off-site” within the village which they said “already can’t cope with existing parking demands”.

The Chiltern Society called the design “gaunt and physically overheight”, adding that the three-storey apartment block would “deprive Church Street residents of light” and that it did not “integrate with the historical setting”.

But Rectory Homes said the “scale and massing” of the proposed development “has been closely matched to those existing buildings and do not exceed the height of the existing three-storey care home”.

In the design and access statement, they said: “Development of the former Police Station and Care Home, High Street, Great Missenden will make a substantial and positive contribution to the character and environment of Great Missenden.

“The proposed development has taken into account the design considerations of the surrounding areas, listed buildings, the existing site, social and housing needs.

“It is considered sympathetic to the character and appearance of the surrounding development area, creating a community with a ‘sense of place’.”

Ian Hunter, director of estates, facilities and services at Bucks New University, which owns the neighbouring Missenden Abbey and also raised objections to the initial application, said he was “extraordinarily disappointed” that the plans had been given the green light.

He said: “We, as well as many local residents, will be extraordinarily disappointed that this has been approved – it will be visually detrimental to the village. It’s the size of the development which we object to.

“It will not harmonise with the surrounding area, will sit between two Grade II listed buildings and is immediately adjacent to a conservation area.”