DETAILED plans for a care home on the site of a large residential development in St Leonards have been submitted.

Barchester Health Care is delivering the 66-bed care home as part of the fifth phase of the Victory Oak housing development by Spectrum Premier Homes.

The £50m scheme will deliver a total of 210 homes on the site of a former American military hospital.

The care home, which has already received outline planning permission from East Dorset District Council, will be built on a 1.5 acre plot along the western boundary of the residential development.

The three-storey building will have an entrance hub with reception and communal day spaces at the centre, with the residential wings branching off.

Amenities including a café, hair salon, therapy space, and a meeting room are also proposed.

In its planning application, Barchester Health Care says there is a “great demand for nursing care” in the area.

“Within East Dorset there is a shortfall of 1,582 registered care beds, and within a five-mile radius of the application site there is a need for an additional 2,178 beds.

“The need for nursing care with East Dorset and within a five-mile catchment area of the site is also significant.”

Just over 50 of the rooms will be private and 13 will be affordable. The operator would seek to work with the NHS trust to identify local need. Around 60 staff members would be employed for the care home.

The site would be accessed via the existing access road from the A31. Twenty-seven car parking spaces are proposed on site, as well as “ample open space and landscaped gardens”.

Barchester Health Care says the care home will “make a significant contribution towards meeting the needs of the local ageing population”.

“If successful, the proposal will take an empty site which currently provides no benefit and provide an attractive, sustainable scheme which will add to the economic growth of the town.”

“The local community and their political representatives have been consulted on the proposals during the consultation process and there is considerable support for a facility of this type in the town.”

The plans are with East Dorset District Council.