A CARE home project to provide specialist care for people with mental health problems will be launched next week.
Clr Dennis Hullock will perform the official sod-cutting for the new home on the site of Claremont House at Heckondwike.
It will be one of four state-of-the-art modern care homes for older people being built over the next year in a £10m scheme for specialist residential care across the Kirklees Council area.
It will be the second home to get off the ground, following a similar ceremony for Moorlands Grange in Netherton last month.
That will provide care for people recovering after hospital care or needing specialist assessment and long-stay residential care.
The two other new homes will be on the site of the former Castle Grange home at Newsome - which will specialise in care for older people with mental health needs - and Ings Grove House in Mirfield, which will specialise in providing short-term breaks for older people.
Each of the homes will have 40 en suite rooms, the first en suite facilities ever to be provided in council-run care homes.
Clr Hullock - the Kirklees Cabinet member responsible for social services - said: "The launches and sod-cutting ceremonies demonstrate the council's commitment to provide high-quality care services for older people, which go beyond the minimum standards required nationally.
"They are an important part of the wider programme to transform services for older people for many years.
"While the thrust of the overall strategy is to do everything we can to support people living independently in their own homes for as long as possible, high-quality residential care will always be needed.
That is what these homes will provide." He added: "Each of the four homes will have 40 modern rooms with private toilet, shower and bath.
"The overall drive of the modernisation programme is to move away from residential care as a first option.
"Concentrating on developing services that enable people to live in their own homes, or independently in the community but with care support services, for as long as possible is what people say they want. That is what we aim to provide.
"However, high-quality residential care will always be available as part of a wide choice of care and support services. Our older people deserve the best services to suit their needs."
