Plans Approved To Replace Belper Care Home

Derby County Council have approved plans to replace Ada Belfield residential home with a purpose-built development.

The cabinet met last week (Tuesday, 11th October) and agreed the proposal to close Ada Belfield Home for Older People in Belper during the meeting.

The proposal to close the home is part of our wider five-year plan, running from 2015-2020, which aims to keep 18 of their residential care homes open – one in each Derbyshire district.

This will see and continued to investment in residential care, extra care and specialist care for older people.

At its meeting, the Cabinet agreed to:

• close Ada Belfield once a new care home proposed for the former Thornton’s factory site on Derwent Street in the town is open.
• offer all current Ada Belfield residents a place in the new development.
• move current staff to the new development so that residents would have continuity of care and be familiar with staff.

It is estimated that the replacement home could be open by the end of 2019.

The Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care Councillor, Paul Smith, said: “While Ada Belfield does provide high quality care by the dedicated staff team, the building itself does not meet standards provided in other council-run homes and care centres and the cost for maintenance and refurbishment would be around £850,000.

“Our plans are to replace Ada Belfield with a new state-of-the-art building on Derwent Street, which would be a great addition to the town and would also include a long-awaited new library for the area.

“None of the current residents would be expected to move until the proposed new development was ready and full assessments of all residents would be carried out before any move took place.”

The council launched an eight-week consultation in June to give local people, residents, their families and staff the opportunity to have their say on the plans. Forty people attended two meetings at Ada Belfield where they got the chance to give their views to council staff in person.