A NEW specialist care home for adults with complex needs is being built in Coventry, bringing 100 new jobs to the city.
Exemplar Health Care has tabled a planning application to build the new home on the site of the derelict St Nicholas Church in Radford.
The specialist 36-bed care home has been designed to replicate the character of the locally listed church.
Midlands-based Deeley Construction has been appointed to complete the development designed by Watson Batty Architects.
The three-storey home will feature facilities to support the delivering of nursing care, dining rooms, quiet rooms and lounge areas on each floor.
And it will include a residential therapy room and entrance hub with meeting areas for visiting relatives.
A new sensory garden will provide a communal space for residents to enjoy and there will be a 24-space car park, including six new parking spaces for the existing parish hall building.
Exemplar Health Care, which has more than 40 care homes across the UK, helps people living at its homes by partnering with NHS commissioners and social care funders.
The company’s director of commissioning, Charlotte Lloyd, said: “As well as providing over 100 employment opportunities, there are plans in place to integrate the new care home into the local community.
“It’s our ambition is for the home to be a place where we host events, and where our residents can be part of the community, whether through work placements, local events or volunteering.”
St Nicholas Church is in a state of disrepair and due to the increasing costs of work required to refurbish it will be demolished to make way for the new care home.
The building has not been used for more than 10 years after it was deemed unsafe with the neighbouring parish hall being used for services.
This is the third development in which Exemplar Health Care has partnered with Coventry’s Deeley Group.
Eleanor Deeley, Deeley Group’s joint managing director, said there was a need in the city for a place where adults with complex needs could be supported and the firm was pleased to be working with Exemplar Health Care to provide it.
“This is an excellent development which will see the replacement of a dangerous and derelict church – which has been marketed and had no interest – with a facility for the local community which will provide vital care and important jobs for people in the city.”
