A nursing home for elderly people combined with an office development will be built in Abingdon creating more than 100 jobs.

The £3m development will go on an empty strip of land in Marcham Road. Work is expected to start in the autumn and will be completed next year.

The home will be run by Carebase for 60 elderly people suffering from dementia.

There will be 20 rooms on each of the three floors, 15 parking spaces for the home and garden patios by the river. Ventilation in some bedrooms must be improved before final planning approval is given.

An artist's impression of the development The office development will have a further 14 car parking spaces.

Carebase has 12 homes around the country including one at Burcot, near Dorchester. Managing director Seamus Halton said: "The care home will meet intense local need for care provision for the elderly.

"Abingdon needs a care home and residents will be drawn from the local community. This will be a community home and most patients will be State-funded. The Vale district, and Oxfordshire generally, suffers from substantial under-provision of residential care which will only become more acute as the population becomes older."

According to latest county council predictions, the number of people over 76 will grow by 11 per cent by 2010 and 38 per cent by 2020. There is a shortage of all types of registered care beds across Oxfordshire.

Vale of White Horse district councillors have welcomed the scheme but had concerns about noise from the busy Marcham Road and ventilation for 30 rooms facing the main road.

Ock Mill ward councillors Peter Green and Mike Badcock praised the proposals. Mr Green said: "This area of waste land has been a tip, an eyesore for far too long and is a bad advert for the town.

"Now at last we will see a vast improvement with a care home that will help satisfy an urgent need."

Mr Badcock agreed: "I am in no doubt this home will be an asset to the town and district and will become a very well-used facility."