Work on 65-bedroom residential care home could start this year

Work on a new care home with 65 en suite bedrooms could get underway this year.

Padda Care Ltd said it was delighted to secure planning permission for the three-storey building in Cross Hands.

The facility will have five living rooms, a dining room, a medical room, 25 parking spaces, and a minibus-ambulance drop-off space.

Access will be off Maes Yr Haf and Padda Care will need to provide a shared-use path from the care home to nearby Bryngwili Road. The site is currently vacant land.

‘High quality care’

Chris Tymanowski, managing director at Padda Care, said: “It is no secret that west Wales desperately needs more high-quality care services and as such we’re working with Carmartheshire Council to finalise exactly which services should be provided that serve the best interest of the area and wider county.

“The current plan is that development work will commence in 2025 with the new home and services to be delivered in 2026. This will generate extensive employment during the construction phase and care work on delivery of the home.”

The care home will be a few hundred metres from Cross Hands Retail Park. A doctors’ surgery and pharmacy are also nearby. People with varying levels of dependency, including specialist dementia care, will live there.

A design and access statement submitted as part of Padda Care’s application to the council recommended that two former mine shafts at the site are filled in and stabilised. The council has insisted through a planning condition that this takes place before the care home is built.

Padda Care already has a specialist dementia care home in Llandybie, Carmarthenshire, and another in Morriston, Swansea.

Council care home

Carmarthenshire Council, meanwhile, is planning to build a 60-bed residential care and nursing home in Cwmgwili, a couple of miles south-east of Cross Hands. It’s expected to cost around £19.5m and open in 2027.

A population needs assessment two years ago estimated that Carmarthenshire will have 25% more residents aged 85 and over by 2030 and more care homes are needed. Speaking at a cabinet meeting last December Cllr Jane Tremlett, cabinet member for health and social services, said: “It is imperative that we address the shortfall in accommodation.”