NEW homes and a day care centre for the disabled are to be built on the site of a former care home in Whitley.
The Willows Care Home at 2 Hexham Road used to serve as the base of Reading Borough Council’s reablement service, which looked after people with disabilities and those who are frail or recovering from an illness or injury.
It closed in 2019, and the site was demolished last year.
The council’s housing and adult social care teams launched a project to replace it with a new four-storey building containing 42 homes for those who require assistance and a day care centre.
These will be one-bed sheltered housing flats, split between older persons and general needs sheltered housing.
Reading Borough Council’s sheltered housing service allows people to live independently with the benefit of a 24-hour monitoring centre for emergencies and the use of its housing repair service.
The ground floor of the building will contain a day care centre on the ground floor, providing space for adults with profound and multiple learning disabilities.
Welcoming the plan, Cllr Jan Gavin (Labour, Caversham) said: “It will provide for independent and supported accommodation for some of our most vulnerable residents.
“There’s lots of trees and landscaping that will create an open feeling around the site.
“It will sit well where it does in Hexham Road, and I can see nothing about it that I wouldn’t vote for.
“It’s a terrific application.”
Cllr Gavin gave the project team praise for its extensive consultation with the access and disabilities working group which she chairs and noted the group’s suggestions were taken on board.
The site will contain 16 car parking spaces, with 10 for residents and six for the day care centre.
Cllr Andrew Hornsby-Smith (Labour, Church) said: “It is a very exciting and very welcome application, it serves the most vulnerable members of our community, so it’s a really good thing that’s happening here.
“The design provides a very good way of protecting the visual amenities of residents in both Hexham Road and Bede Walk, and it deals with the current vacant site.
“The use of it is going to be fantastic.”
Members of the planning applications committee unanimously approved the project on Wednesday, November 1.
Cllr Ellie Emberson (Labour, Coley), the lead councillor for housing, and Cllr John Ennis (Labour, Southcote), the former lead councillor for adult social care declared an interest in the project and therefore were not allowed to vote.
