A BOTLEY care home is to move to a new £5m centre in Sandford-on-Thames and its current building could be turned into bedsits.

The Botley Alzheimer’s Home at Vale House in West Way could be converted if Vale of White Horse District Council give the plans the go ahead.

The £840-a-week specialist dementia care home currently has 20 patients, but the waiting list has another 20 names on it.

Witney-based Builders Ede Ltd is to pay the not-for-profit organisation £650,000 for the building if the home gets planning permission for the change of use.

Home manager Tricia O’Leary said: “We have bought a plot of land to build a bigger and better care home on, but in order to be able to fund it we need to get a good a price as we possibly can.”

The new home in Sandford Road, Sandford-on-Thames, will have 40 rooms all with en suite bathrooms.

It will also be called Vale House and the residents hope to move in by January next year.

South Oxfordshire District Council gave the scheme planning permission in May last year and the building is now almost complete.

Mrs O’Leary said the need for dementia care had grown due to an increase in the older population.

She added: “We hope no one will have any serious objections as that building, if it was left unoccupied, would be left to squatters and it could be put to a much worse use. It is going to be done tastefully.”

North Hinksey Parish Council discussed the plans last night.

Chairman Neil Clark said: “There is an awful lot of concern locally about what is happening overall with this rush of applications for flats. The concern is our infrastructure cannot cope.”

The district council hopes to make a decision on the plans for the West Way building by December 15.

If approved the home will be turned into a residential house with shared facilities.

The Oxford Mail approached Builders Ede Ltd for a comment but no one was available.

bwilkinson@oxfordmail.co.uk