Wales

Moor Road Care Home

The construction of a 60 bed care home in Aberavon, Port Talbot is progressing well.

The property is due to be completed in June 2014 and is being built and managed by Gwalia Group; a registered social landlord with over 10,000 properties throughout Wales.

Works began in February 2012 and are still ongoing with the team now at the M & E commissioning stage. Gwalia group gained the land, as it was a public procurement site by Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council, after tendering for the site and successfully winning it.

The two storey care home has been designed collaboratively by architects Pentan Partnership and Gwalia Group, with the onsite construction works being undertaken by main contractor Balfour Beatty.

Premier Construction caught up with Gavin Howells, Development Officer at Gwalia, to find out more about the project. He told us the care home has been designed in line with the Skills for Care and Skills for Health dementia principles, which outline the common core requirements for supporting those with any kind of dementia.

The main aim of the project was to make the property a self contained space, as well as a building that allowed residents to observe the outside world. The property comprises numerous clusters of accommodation which are all arranged around a central courtyard.

Within each cluster of accommodation a lounge, diner and toilet facilities have been installed as well as en suite bathrooms in every bedroom. Everything has been designed so that residents can expand outside; all the rooms are bright, airy and let daylight in. There is a terraced garden on the first floor, an enclosed garden for those on the ground floor, as well as a central communal garden which comprises a kitchen garden and an orchard garden.

Gavin Howell said:

We have designed these properties so that residents, who spend the majority of their time in care facilities, are able to access pleasant external spaces on a regular basis. The main challenge was to allow visual access to the outdoors. The main people who will move into the property upon completion will be those from private properties or those transferring from state care.

We will be managing the care home for 25 years before having the option to extend the premises or hand the property back to the Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council.”

Gavin said the project is running extremely well:

It has been a really smooth project; well managed and well designed project and in terms of delivery it has been textbook. As a client you can’t ask for anything more than a well run project. It has been a collaborative approach between the design team, the client and the contractor and I think we have all benefitted from that relationship really.

It is a very challenging design, but it fits in well with the existing landscape which is predominantly residential, as well as having industrial properties and commercial buildings in the surrounding areas. We have been able to ensure the design blends in with the nearby buildings. The site was a Greenfield site and had to be remediated as it had previously been affected by flooding.”

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