A CARE home will be built in Kidlington under parish council plans to sell allotments for development.

Kidlington Parish Council has agreed terms with a developer for a 70-bed care home for dementia patients at the 22-plot Gravel Pits site in The Moors, next to Briar Close.

The council said no plot holders have lost a space and can use new plots next to the site or at another village site in Bicester Road.

Developer Castlemead Group is expected to shortly submit a planning application to Cherwell District Council.

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The land will only be sold if the district council gives planning permission.

Parish council chairman David Betts said: “We are pleased to work with Castlemead which will bring a capital receipt to the parish council.

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Parish council chairman David Betts

“This money will enable the council to progress projects in the village without a further burden on the council tax.

“We have found alternative sites for allotment tenants.”

The parish council has asked for 32 car parking spaces – more than the normal requirement because it doesn’t want to see any increased parking in The Moors.

The home is to be for dementia patients who will not have cars and while the facility will generate up to 70 local jobs these will be on a 24-hour cover shift basis so not all staff will be on site at the same time.

Money gerenated from the sale can only be spent on capital projects – other than the interest generated. The first thing that the council is compelled to do is to pay off any outstanding loans.

Last November the Oxford Mail reported the council had been looking to provide more than 50 houses on the site and adjacent land.

But this was halved after Worton Farm, which owned the land by the allotments, withdrew from negotiations.

Maurice Winters, 83, who lives next to Gravel Pits in The Moors, said: “The bottom end floods, that is my concern.

“The bottom end gets six or seven inches of water, it was like a lake this year.”

Neighbour Tony McMullan, 68, said: “I don’t really have concerns. It depends how much traffic there will be.”

Brairs Close resident Valerie Shaw, 72, said: “A care home is better than houses as there won’t be so much traffic. At least it would help the community.”

Plans for a controversial 54-room care home in The Moors, by St Mary’s Close, were approved by the district council in June last year.

Some 55 residents’ letters opposed the Bedfordshire Pilgrims Housing Association with concerns it would “tower” over homes.

But Oxfordshire County Council cabinet member for adult social care Judith Heathcoat said the home was needed because of an ageing population.

The council provides more than 140 allotment plots at Bicester Road, Blenheim Road, Hazel Walk, Gravel Pits, Yarnton Road and Station Fields.

Parish council allotment committee chairman Carole Pack said of plot holders: “They have all moved out now.

“Some have gone to Station Fields, the next one up and we have some new allotments on Bicester Road and some have gone there.

“One or two who have been here for a long time are a bit fussed about it because they didn’t know where they are going.”

Castlemead had yet to comment when contacted by the Oxford Mail.


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