Broomfield Village: a ‘home from home’ as a matter of Principle

Broomfield Village Care Home in Chelmsford, Essex is the first to be opened by Principle Care Homes. The operator's managing director is Ashish Goyal, nephew of Hallmark Homes' Avnish Goyal, and — along with his sister, Principle co-founder and finance director, Nisha Goyal — one of several Goyal family members making a name for themselves in the care sector.

The site of Neolithic and Bronze Age settlements, and later occupied by the Romans, Chelmsford has been the county town of Essex since the 13th century. At the end of the 19th century, Guglielmo Marconi established his Wireless Telegraph Company in Chelmsford, and the city became known — somewhat contentiously — as the 'birthplace of radio', with Marconi making Britain's first official publicised sound broadcast in 1920.

For its first care home, Principle Care Homes decided to purchase and regenerate an existing four-storey care home located directly behind Broomfield Hospital. Originally known as Essex County Hospital, the hospital was built in the late 1930s (although it has been extensively rebuilt and remodelled over the years). The Care Home Environment visited the 137-bed Broomfield Village in mid-February, when the home had been open for only five weeks, to chat with Ashish Goyal about the project and Principle's future plans, and to meet with customer relationship manager Laura Mansfield for a tour of the home.