A huge new residential care home for older people and those with dementia is to be built in Cardiff. The 85-bedroom nursing home will replace vacant offices at Melrose Hall in St Mellons, which are set to be demolished to make way for the development.
As well as bedrooms the three-storey building will also feature dining halls and a lounge area as well as amenities including a cinema, gym, barbers, and hair salon. Get the latest planning news from across Cardiff sent straight to your inbox for free by signing up to our newsletter.
Warner Planning, acting on behalf of Bluecrest Land (Melrose) Ltd, received outline permission for the site from Cardiff council on Friday, October 21. The development aims to make a "significant contribution" to an "extensive local need" for residential care accommodation with a growing elderly population increasing demand significantly.
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The new home, off Cypress Drive, will be "designed with dementia in mind" with accommodation suitable for end-of-life and hospice care also being provided. A "well-designed" layout, with communal areas in the centre of the building, has been proposed to "create a welcoming and homely" nursing home without a "typical institutional feel".
The planning application, submitted to the council last year, shows that the 85 bedrooms, which will be spread over four floors, may be private or shared, containing either one or two beds, with some also benefiting from an en suite bathroom. The ground floor features a spacious communal lounge and two dining halls as well as an activity suite and café while a cinema, gym, hair salon, and therapy rooms will also be used by residents on the basement level.
There are also communal spaces and dining rooms across the first, second, and upper floors with a barber, more lounges, quiet rooms, and IT suites available for residents. Each floor will be autonomous and can be broken down into smaller units with the application stating that this design will "give appropriate flexibility to cope with the change in the future". It adds: "There is a significant movement to provide the internal layout of homes as clusters to allow homes to be managed in a controlled manner, particularly in light of the current Covid-19 pandemic."
Outside a new garden, patio, and courtyard will also be accessible to residents while 23 car parking spaces, including four disabled spaces, and electrical charging points will be included on the site. The building has been "specially designed to complement the area" with the application stating that it will be a "significant improvement" on the vacant office buildings currently at Melrose Hall.
The development aims to meet the demands of an increasingly elderly population with ONS forecasts revealing that the greatest increase by proportion of age group from 2014 to 2039 is represented by over-75s with a 48% increase is expected during this period. Within the Cardiff region, according to population projections, there will be nearly 68% more people aged over 65 by 2036 with those aged over 85 more than doubling in that time.
The planning statement for the development adds: "Analysis by older person homes specialist Carterwood indicates that within a five-mile radius of the site there is a need for 329 en suite bed units within the catchment and 837 wet room bed units. The proposal will make a significant contribution to this extensive local need."
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