THE final go-ahead has been given for a state-of-the-art care home and hospital complex in Chipping Norton.

Detailed planning consent has been approved by West Oxfordshire district councillors and the scheme is set to be finished next year.

The existing Castle View care home will be replaced by a 50-bed home, with an intermediate care wing.

The town's War Memorial Hospital, to be sold off, will be replaced by a new primary care centre with clinics, X-ray facilities and a maternity unit.

Revised plans submitted by the Oxfordshire Care Partnership allow 54 car parking spaces for patients and visitors. There will also be a new footpath and cycle path from London Road to the site.

Both Castle View and the War Memorial hospital will remain open until the new facilities are completed.

Martin Brookes, council planning officer, said previous plans to have access into the site from Banbury Road encountered legal problems. The new building would be "sympathetic in scale and materials" to existing buildings in the area, he added.