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CARE PROVISION FOR ALDERSHOT’S ELDERLY TO GET A BOOST
23-06-2009
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Plans to tackle a growing shortage of residential care for elderly people in Aldershot have been unveiled.
A home with 70 en-suite bed rooms will be built alongside the new Aldershot Centre for Health, if local developer Wilky Group receives planning consent. This would make up nearly half the current shortfall, according to research carried out for the company.
Wilky completed the health centre development last year. It says elderly residents will benefit from being part of Europe’s largest healthcare campus, where the latest treatment facilities, a pharmacy and teams of healthcare professionals are all on hand.
The care facility will also create the equivalent of 60 new jobs.
Stringent new government standards have led some older care homes to close, including Christmas Lodge, Aldershot. One in every 10 beds has disappeared in the last five years. Now the area has just 52 care home places for every 1,000 people aged over 80, compared with 79 places per 1,000 nationally.
This means the area is short of 150 beds. Worse still, with the ageing population and 4,500 new homes planned for the Aldershot Urban Extension, the shortfall is expected to rise to 225 – even without further closures.
Wilky chief executive Malcolm Young said there was strong interest in the proposal from healthcare operators but an occupier would not be chosen until after the planning application had been determined.
The proposed crescent-shaped building of two and three storeys will be sited at the junction of Hospital Hill and Middle Hill. It will feature a rooftop garden, solar water heating and its own parking area.
The site is currently part of the Centre for Health staff car park. These spaces would be replaced by extending the centre’s multi-storey car park. The arrangement – already agreed with Wilky’s principal tenant Hampshire Primary Care Trust and covered by an existing planning consent -- means the Centre would not lose any parking overall.
*The Wilky Group has been commended for its Aldershot Centre for Health development by a leading specialist magazine.
Wilky’s achievement was highlighted in the property developer of the year category of Health Investor magazine’s 2009 awards. The awards were judged by a panel of independent healthcare industry experts and announced to an audience of 750 by politician and journalist Michael Portillo.
Photo caption: A computer generated image of the proposed new care home as seen from Middle Hill.
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