Friday 23rd April 2010
Joyce Redfearn, Chief Executive of Wigan Borough Council, formally laid the foundation stone for Belong Atherton's £10 million community village for older people on March 19th, hailing it as a 'brilliant' development.
Trowel in hand, the council chief did the honours before a gathering of photographers, construction workers and guests which included Secretary of State for Health Andy Burnham who popped in at the last minute.
The village, in Mealhouse Lane, is on schedule to open in March next year. It will contain facilities that will be available to the wider community including a bistro, hair and beauty salon, activities suite, an internet café, and a function room that can be used for meetings, cinema screenings, and parties, complete with licensed bar.
Belong Atherton will contain six family-sized 'households' each able to accommodate 12 older people and providing specialist residential, dementia and nursing care.
There will also be 10 one-bedroom and 16 two-bedroom apartments with care packages available.
At a reception held later at the Park Inn Hotel, Leigh, Belong Chief Executive Nick Dykes described the foundation stone event as one of the milestones.
"Belong Atherton is a place where older people aged from about 55 years old and upwards can come and enjoy their life in a mixture of supported households and modern apartments", he said.
"The people of Atherton can also come and visit and use the facilities as their own. It will be a living, vibrant community not a ghetto of older people but a place of constant activity with a public space in the centre and private spaces around the outside".
Joyce Redfearn revealed that it was the first time that she had been invited to lay a foundation stone in the borough and said she was genuinely privileged to be asked to do so.
Also present was Ian Woolrich, Construction Director and Peter Blake, Contracts Manager at Cruden Construction, and other members of the Cruden team, and Damian Utton, who is the author of 'Designing Homes For People With Dementia' and also a Director of Pozzoni, the architects for the scheme.
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