FORTY flats providing extra care for older people are to be built in Banbury.
Oxfordshire County Council has been successful in bidding for £1.35m of government cash.
The money will be spent on developing 40 one and two-bed flats at Orchard Fields, Prescott Avenue, with work due to start October 2009 and taking about a yea
r to complete.
The scheme is one of 25 successful bids across the country for a share of £80m of funding for projects aimed at enabling frail older people and those with dementia and long-term medical conditions to live in their own homes but with 24-hour, on-site support from social and health care services.
The development, which will be built next to a 60-bed care home and is a joint bid with the Oxfordshire Care Partnership, will also have communal facilities, such as a restaurant, lounge and internet access.
People with a mix of housing and social care needs will be able to rent or buy a leasehold flat in the complex.
Nigel Holmes of Oxfordshire County Council said: "We're absolutely thrilled to get this money. Extra-care housing really is the way of the future. The aim is to build retirement communities where people can remain in their own homes for longer because of the on-site support.
"It should also cut the number of hospital admissions and also the number of people having to go into residential care. More people will remain independent right up to the very end of their lives."
For more information on extra-care housing in Oxfordshire visit www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/extracarehousing.
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