COUNCIL plans to build a new care home in the district moved a step closer yesterday.

Bradford Council’s decision-making executive agreed to the renewed plan to build a new short-stay care home facility in Saltaire at a meeting.

The Council-owned site is that of the former Neville Grange Resource Centre which has already been demolished.

Since the last costings for the new care home were drawn up in October 2021, the projected cost of the build has now increased – both by inflation and due to extra ground works being required.

At the meeting in City Hall, members of the executive agreed to spend £13.379m on the development – an increase of just over £4 million.

They also agreed that one of the two homes that will make way for the proposed Saltaire development, Woodward Court in Allerton, can be officially closed down.

The building had deteriorated and was no longer safe, so no new admission were made there since March and all other short-stay residents have moved home.

The meeting heard that the care home had effectively been “mothballed” until a formal decision by the executive to close it down permanently.

Iain MacBeath, the Council’s strategic director of health and wellbeing, told the meeting that underground mine-workings had been discovered on the former Neville Grange site – and that work to fill these with concrete would be needed whether the care home was built or not.

This cost of £900,000, plus an extra £1.5m due to inflation on the building materials and labour costs, as well as a 15 per cent risk allowance of £1.5m – have all added to the extra £4.033m estimated costs, he said.

This additional budget will be added to the Council’s Capital Investment Programme, now it has been approved by the executive.

Councillor Sarah Ferriby, Bradford Council’s executive member for healthy people and places, said: “The new facility will be state of the art, providing facilities that are fit for purpose and for the future people of this district.

It’s vital that we progress with this project and this site, and we need to invest in upgrading our facilities for older people both as a preventative measure and also to enable them to return to live active healthy lives in their own homes.”

According to a Council report, the site will be able to accommodate a 50-bed residential unit. This will be made up of five 10-bed suites which will be built to the same specifications and standards as the recent build at Valley View, Oakworth.