A £12 million, 80-bed care home could open on the site of a soon-to-close dementia home in Southampton.

The Daily Echo can reveal plans to overhaul the Woodside Lodge site after the dementia home closes this year.

Council chiefs say the new home would provide extra care for hundreds of residents after the existing building and a council block next door are knocked down.

Woodside Lodge will close after civic chiefs approved closing it alongside other services for vulnerable adults last year, while the neighbouring housing block in Wimpson Lane has suffered from subsidence and was set to be knocked down anyway.

The closure plans proved to be controversial and campaigners are still protesting against the decision more than six months after the decision was taken.

At the time the council said the decision to close Woodside Lodge, as opposed to two others, was due to its “low occupancy rates”.

Criticism of Labour council chiefs’ handling of the closures led to calls being made for adult social care chief Dave Shields to quit last week.

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City council leader Simon Letts said: “The law is absolutely clear: you can make no plans at all until you can reach a formal decision, but after that happened we had to make decisions about what happens next to the site.

“The principle of extra care is that you can move somewhere where you can be independent and with the knowledge that if you become frail or in need of care you will never have to move again.”

The council-run facility would take in dementia patients as well as people with other needs and provide flats, communal facilities and the ability to speak to staff in case of an emergency.

If planning permission is granted, construction work could begin next summer.

Of the money needed to build the new home, £4 million will come from right-to-buy receipts that the council must spend within three years, while £8 million will come from borrowing which Cllr Letts says will be repaid over time by fees paid to the council by residents.

 

Jeremy Moulton, leader of the Conservative opposition, said: “It really does look like the fact Woodside Lodge is closing and the site next door has been empty for a long time have played in tandem.

“I think it is pretty clear the reason why Woodside was singled out for closure over the other two care homes.

“I think they are treating people like fools.”

Keith Morrell, leader of the council’s independent anti-cuts group, had criticised Labour for the cuts but said: “The fact that it will be a council-run development means that it will be of a high quality, with very committed members of staff who are properly paid and we need this sort of facility in the city.”