THE COMPANY aiming to build a new care home on the site of a former York city council home has revealed its plans.

Octopus Healthcare bought the site of Fordlands House care home in Fulford from City of York Council earlier this year, with plans to build a new privately run home at the location.

An application submitted to the city council reveals more about the company’s hopes for a 64 bed care home, with ensuite bathrooms and other facilities - including car parking, landscaping and private residents’ gardens, and first floor terraces to communal areas.

When the deal was first struck between Octopus and the city council, executives said the land sale would bring in money to support the authority’s wider overhaul of older persons’ accommodation.

They also said it would help replace the council’s outdated older people’s homes with a wide range of more modern accommodation which met modern care standards.

A spokesman said that if Octopus got its planning permission, it would bring much-needed new residential and nursing care accommodation for older people with complex care needs, such as dementia.

In a design and access statement prepared for the application, agents W R Dunn, said the new home would meet a identified need for more care home places in York.

They said: “The care home will diversify the type of care accommodation that exists in the local area and will provide independent and private rooms of varying sizes with en-suite facilities. Additional shared facilities will be available for residents, such as dining rooms, lounges, activity rooms, hairdressers and a residents and visitors cafe.”

The council originally planned to build its own multi-million pound care home on the Fulford site, but abandoned the plans in 2012 because of a combination of increased flooding risks, trees and bat surveys.

Fordlands was one of the first city council care homes to close under its current project, and with a consultation on the closure of Woolnough House currently underway, the authority could soon have just three left on its books.