The historic Whitton Whitehouse could have a new use as a specialist care home for women suffering from eating disorders.

Ipswich Borough Council – which occupied the building for many years as an area housing office – has received a planning application from Brama Care to convert the building.

It would have six bedrooms, offices and therapy rooms – but it would not require major structural alterations and the building would not be changed externally.

The application is due to be discussed by the borough’s planning and development committee at its meeting in March – and if planning permission is granted, work to convert the building is expected to start in the spring.

Brama Care director Laetitia Beaujard Ramoo said the centre would be the first they had opened – and would cater for patients referred by NHS doctors and hospitals.

Her husband, a GP near Chelmsford, would be the medical director of the centre.

She said: “This will be an important centre for the region and we are looking forward to getting under way with it. The building does not need much work so we hope there should be no problem with the planning.”

The Whitton Whitehouse on the edge of what is now Whitehouse Park was a substantial country house on the edge of the village – until it became absorbed into Ipswich as the town grew during the first half of the 20th Century.

It gave its name to the Whitehouse housing estate which was built shortly after the Second World War – and had several uses before it became the area housing office in the 1980s.

The housing offices closed a few years ago with their work being transferred to the council’s Grafton House headquarters – leading to the building being sold off, and now the new use being proposed for it.