A LONG delayed care home development in Saltaire is now moving ahead - with another care home in Keighley due to open in March.

Plans to redevelop the former site of the Neville Grange Resource Centre on Queens Road, Saltaire were first approved by Bradford Council in 2014, with the hope that the scheme would be up and running in 2015.

However, work has never started on the site.

Now Bradford Council has revealed that it will soon submit a new planning application for the land - to build a 50 bed short stay residential home for the elderly.

The issue was discussed by members of the Council’s Health and Social Care Scrutiny Committee on Thursday evening.

Members were also given an update on the under construction care home being built on the former Bronte Middle School site in Keighley.

That £12.8 million development will see 69 extra care flats built on the site along with a 50 bedded short stay residential unit.

READ MORE: 'Almost 9,000 Bradford residents will have dementia by 2035'

The development was originally due to open in January, but members of the committee have been told that this has been pushed back to late March.

The committee were discussing the Council’s plans for elderly accommodation in the coming years.

In 2017 the Council voted to close 11 Council run care homes, which officers said were no longer fit for purpose, with five care homes. The idea was to create more extra support flats, and help people remain in their own homes as long as possible.

At Thursday’s meeting Lyn Sowray, Deputy Director for Health and Wellbeing, said: “The development on the Bronte school site will have 69 apartments, 30 of which will be for people living with dementia.

“It is a great opportunity to establish something that is really needed in the Keighley area.”

The Neville Grange residential home in Saltaire closed in 2013 to make way for a newer facility. The original plan for the site would have been a partnership with Incommunities, and seen 45 extra care apartments for the elderly built, along with 20 intermediate care units and associated facilities including a restaurant/cafe. It would have been built on land owned by the Council and the housing provider.

But Incommunities decided to withdraw from the partnership - and the site has remained empty ever since.

Committee members were told the plans were now moving ahead, with a new business case for a 50 bed short stay residential home on the site written, and a planning application to follow in the near future. It is expected to cost £4.5 million.