A £3.5MILLION care home creating 80 jobs has been earmarked for Colne.

A planning application has been submitted to create a purpose-built care home in Gibfield Road, on the site of the now demolished Boulsworth Residential Centre.

Yorkshire-based Silk Healthcare, which runs the Heather Grange care home in Burnley, is behind the plans.

A spokesman for the architects working on behalf of Silk Healthcare, ARP Design, said: “The site was formerly a residential care home for the elderly and a separate day centre.

“The old buildings that were no longer fit for purpose have now been demolished and remediation work on the site is progressing.

“The building has been designed to include generous recreational areas, larger than normal bedrooms and additional facilities such as all en-suite WCs and showers and activity rooms.

“The proposals bring a derelict brownfield site back into use within an established community.

“The development would represent a capital investment of over £3.5million and would create a business that would eventually employ approximately 80 local people on a full-time and part-time basis, given the 24-hour staffing of the building.

“The business will represent a large new local employer and will have a sound financial future on the basis of present demographic trends.

“It also has a wider benefit to the community in increasing the demand for support services and will have a positive impact on local values and may provoke other capital investment in the area.”

Silk Healthcare’s website describes the potential development as ‘an exciting new purpose-built luxurious care facility, situated close to local amenities’.

Silk Healthcare wants to operate a small and select group of luxury care homes which specialise in caring for people with varying degrees of memory impairment and ultimately ‘caring for life’.

A decision on the planning application is likely to be made in June.