Work set to begin on delayed extra-care scheme

A CONTROVERSIAL new multi-million pound extra-care facility which has dragged back North Yorkshire County Council’s pioneering strategy and led to it lodging a formal complaint against a neighbouring local authority is to finally get off the ground following months of delay.

The £7.6m Greenfoot extra-care facility at Lower Greenfoot, Settle, has been beset with numerous delays in the planning process, including confusion over a section 106 agreement and the first application being rejected by councillors, leading the county council to lodge the complaint with Craven District Council.

One county councillor claims he has been waiting for work to begin on the project for more than two years. The scheme is part of a county-wide push to create new facilities, which are designed to allow elderly residents to live independently while having access to professional on-site support.

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The new developments are seen as key to coping with the soaring elderly population in Britain and North Yorkshire – where the number of over-65s is predicted to rocket by 50 per cent and the number of over-85s by 65 per cent by 2020.

To date, the county council has invested £14.7m in 15 operational extra-care housing schemes from Scarborough to Stokesley, Ripon and Bainbridge down to Selby. But the council has come under fire after announcing it is poised to push ahead with a new £20m investment in Thirsk and Sowerby, despite the Settle scheme lagging far behind.

But as the local authority’s executive meets today to decide on backing the Thirsk investment, Coun Clare Wood, executive member for health and adult services, told the Yorkshire Post work is now finally to begin on the Greenfoot scheme.

“It is absolutely right that everybody has been immensely frustrated over the time this has taken,” she said. “Certainly the planning issues have caused considerable delay. But now everything has been signed and it is going to go ahead. All the legal documents are done.”

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Coun Wood said a further 30 extra-care facilities are required to meet North Yorkshire’s growing elderly population, with more schemes to be developed over the next nine months.

The £20m plans being considered for Thirsk and Sowerby – which would be funded by the Homes and Communities Agency and spearheaded by national specialist housing association Housing 21 – involve the replacement of Cherry Garth, the county council’s elderly people’s home in Thirsk, with a new and larger extra-care development in Chapel Street – increasing places for residents from 40 to over 50.

A second extra-care housing facility is also being proposed within the Sowerby Gateway site to the south of Thirsk, supporting a planned large-scale housing development which has caused concern that it will put an added strain on health services in the area.

“This scheme represents a massive investment of around £20m in Thirsk and Sowerby,” said county councillor Gareth Dadd, the divisional member for Thirsk. “This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. And it is important to remember that if the two extra care schemes come to fruition – as I passionately hope and believe they will – there will be state-of-the-art accommodation in Thirsk and Sowerby for upwards of 175 elderly people, who will have everything they need to live full and independent lives in their retirement years.”

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A GP board member of the Hambleton, Richmondshire and Whitby Clinical Commissioning Group, Dr Charles Parker, added: “We welcome the proposals put forward by North Yorkshire County Council which would see significant investment in Thirsk’s health and social care infrastructure.

“From the health service’s perspective, we need to make sure these proposals provide a level of provision that meets the needs of local people. We will be working with the council and health service providers in the coming weeks to examine this in detail.”