Care home plans submitted (From Bucks Free Press)

Plans for care home in Chalfont St Peter submitted

7:30am Friday 3rd February 2012 in News By Andy Carswell

PLANS for a new care community on land formerly owned by the Epilepsy Society have been officially submitted to Chiltern District Council.

The proposals for 82 new retirement properties also feature an orchard, spa and hydrotherapy pool and community care facilities.

At a public consultation into the plans 95 per cent of respondents told developer Audley Retirement they were in favour.

The Epilepsy Society recently sold the land the development has been earmarked for, with money from the sale set to be ploughed back into improving their own care homes.

Chief executive Graham Faulkner said: “Many of our residential care homes are more than a century old and do not adequately meet the standards demanded in today’s world.

"Upgrading old care homes is not a viable option and in the last three years we have undertaken a building programme to provide three new state of the art care homes which comply with Care Quality Commission (CQC standards). Epilepsy Society has only limited reserves and we have therefore had to sell land surplus to our requirements to fund our regeneration programme.”

The care home plan is likely to go before the council's planning committee in the spring.