Council’s last care home faces the axe

PLANS to close the last council-run care home in Sheffield are set to be agreed by the local authority at a meeting next week.

Newton Grange, on Horner Close in Stocksbridge, will be demolished early next summer and replaced by a £5m sheltered housing complex with 50 apartments, to be run by Sanctuary Housing.

Several pensioners living in the home, which has 23 permanent beds, have already moved out.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Meanwhile, due to “insufficient funding” to rebuild Balfour House, a neighbouring sheltered housing complex, it will instead be refurbished and brought up to “modern standards.”

Sheffield Council said the changes will “mean the end of out-of-date facilities, giving older residents and tenants the choice and type of accommodation they require to remain at home independently.”

Coun Mary Lea, the council’s cabinet member for health, said: “It is great that we are able to offer such exclusive, purpose-built accommodation for our older residents and tenants in Stocksbridge.

“It is the first time in years we have been able to offer accommodation on this scale, giving older people better housing and support options in their local area.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

She added that the change has been “on the cards for nearly 10 years” and said: “The council is committed to helping older people live independent and healthy lives.”

Construction of the new apartments on the site of Newton Grange will begin next summer and take around 18 months to complete. Meanwhile, the improvements at Balfour House, estimated to take between six and nine months, will start at the end of the year.

The council is also planning to demolish Sweeney House on nearby Oxley Close, a 23-bed sheltered housing scheme run by Sheffield Homes.

Elderly residents will be given the option to move into the new Sanctuary Homes apartments.