£2 million price tag put on Lowfields site – Future of playing fields unclear.
Labours plans to abandon the super care home project mean that 7 existing elderly persons homes will close:
- Grove House,
- Haxby Hall,
- Morrell House,
- Oakhaven,
- Windsor House,
- Willow House and
- Woolnough House.
All will close by March 2019. The first will close its doors next year.
The Council expects many of the occupants to move into homes provided by the “independent sector”
Houses will be built on most of the vacated sites.
It is proposed that the Lowfields site be used for the provision of “over 100 new homes” including “downsizing” homes to rent and buy for older people as well as “starter homes to rent and buy so that younger families can get on to the housing ladder”.
The Council says that a capital receipt of “at least £2m” for the land will also be realised, confirming that any redevelopment will be by the private sector.
Whether the playing fields are included in this purchase price is unclear
Oakhaven
It is proposed that the “facilities for older people originally envisaged as part of the Community Village on the Lowfields site be, instead, provided at a newly built Extra Care and Health Hub which is expected to replace the Oakhaven OPH on “Front Street” (sic)”.
The Council says it
“will be on making best use of the existing stock of Extra Care Housing in the city. There are five dedicated sheltered housing with ‘extra care’ services in York containing 205 units of accommodation.
Four of these are Council managed schemes – Marjorie Waite Court, Gale Farm Court, Barstow House and Glen Lodge, whilst the fifth (Auden House) is managed by York Housing Association. All homes in these schemes are to rent”.
The Council claims that many of those occupying places in these homes don’t need “extra care” facilities and hints that they may be moved out to make way for those judged to have higher needs!
They say, “We will work with exiting residents to keep disruption to a minimum”
The report concludes,
“York is also under-supplied with Extra Care Housing given the city’s demographics and the anticipated growth in the numbers of over 75s expected over the next decade.
Analysis suggests that there will be need for 490 units of Extra Care accommodation by 2020, rising to 645 in 2030, based upon nation benchmarks. There is a need for both Extra Care to rent and Extra Care to buy; currently just one third of the provision in York is to buy despite 81% of York’s older residents owning their own home.
The independent sector is beginning to address this need. For example, McCarthy & Stone are currently building 28 new sheltered homes to buy at Smithson Court on Top Lane in Copmanthorpe. Elsewhere in Yorkshire they are beginning to build and provide their Extra Care offer – called Assisted Living – and we would expect that they will continue to provide new accommodation as the market demands”.
With the overcrowding in York NHS hospitals reaching crisis point over the last few months, partly as a result of a lack of availability of the right kind of care places for the elderly in the City, the prospect of another 4 years elapsing before the issues are resolved is deeply worrying.
