Go ahead for new care home places

Greenhill House, in Cheddar, has got the go ahead for a majordevelopment.

Sedgemoor District Council has agreed the proposal despiteobjections from the parish council.

At the moment the home has room for 26 residents, this will beincreased to 37 including a unit for people with dementia. Therewill also be 22 care apartments, which will be for sale.

That part of the scheme will give people the chance to live intheir own homes but with the opportunity to have extra careavailable on site.

Sedgemoor's agreement to the plan has a number of restrictionsincluding the fact the applicants, Somerset Care, must agree to alocal labour agreement which means that it must encourage peoplefrom Cheddar and surrounding villages to apply for jobs and helpthem to do so.

But there is no compulsion on the company to employ local people.

Cheddar Parish Council objected to the scheme on a number ofgrounds including a lack of parking and insufficient assistedbathrooms for residents.

But Sedgemoor ward councillor Jeff Savage has made it clear he isin favour, for a number of reasons including the fact that therevamped home will provide a much improved and greatly neededservice to the community. Although six people objected to the scheme12 wrote in support.

Their reasons included:

Providing more day care places for local people;

Cheddar is in dire need of an up-to-date care home;

Special dementia unit will be the only one locally;

Creating more badly-needed jobs;

More than 23 per cent of Cheddar's population is more than 65.

Somerset Care has already promised that the existing residents beaffected as little as possible by the changes.

The plan is to do the building in phases and they will only bemoved within the site as new buildings become available.