A £15 million scheme to build a new care home and develop another has been given the go-ahead.

Members of Wrexham County Borough Council’s planning committee approved the development by the Pendine Park Care Organisation who say it will create 150 new jobs and provide much-need services in dementia care.

The application was recommended for approval by the council’s planning experts.

According to Pendine Park, they are responding to the huge need for more specialist care, with the number of people aged 85 or over set to double over the next 20 years.

They also say the inward investment will provide a big boost to the local economy.

The design of dementia centre at Pendine Park’s site in Summerhill Road will be based on their award winning Bryn Seiont Newydd home in Caernarfon which was named as the best new care home of its kind in the UK after it opened in 2016.

At the same time, they are aiming to redevelop their Hillbury care home across town in Hightown.

Pendine Park was founded in 1985 by Mario Kreft MBE and his wife, Gill, after they failed to find suitable care provision for their own grandparents.

They now have eight care homes in Wrexham and Caernarfon which between them employ more than 800 people.

The organisation has won a huge number of awards for their arts-related activities to enhance the lives of their residents.

The new home will at Pendine Park’s Summerhill Road site will provide accommodation for up to 50 residents and would include treatment rooms, lounges, kitchens, washing and storage facilities.

The site is currently designated as Green Wedge land in the council’s Local Development Plan but Pendine Park maintained it should be seen as part of their operational business and not open countryside. The single storey property will be built on what is currently waste ground.

Mr Kreft said: “We are pleased that the committee gave us the green light to proceed with the development after the officer recommended that it should be approved.

“It is important that we make Pendine sustainable in the long term, and that requires that we continue to develop our services for which there is a very significant community demand.

“We’ve already been working in the town for 33 years and we have grown organically to meet the needs of the community.

“Training is at the core of everything we do at Pendine and we will be raising skill levels as well with the Pendine Academy of Social Care playing a pivotal role.”

“The demand for dementia services is growing all the time , with the Census projection figures to 2035 indicating a 119 per cent increase in the elderly population in the area over the next 18 years. The largest growth will be in the 80 plus age bracket.

“Our aim now is to move forward very quickly and we would hope that by the end of 2020 we would be able to create significant extra capacity in Wrexham and probably a further 150 jobs while at the same time sustaining the 800 jobs we currently have between Wrexham and Caernarfon.

“As well as providing much needed services, the social care sector has been rightly recognised by the Welsh Government as one of four main foundational pillars of the economy.

“From our point of view, it’s a substantial investment in Wrexham over four years and that’s because we need to redevelop some of our existing stock and obviously to do that people have to be accommodated elsewhere.

“It will be a major logistical challenge and the first stage will be building the new facility.

“With good goodwill on all sides and good planning, we believe probably at today’s rates we’re looking at something in the order of about £15 million in investment that will help meet the objectives of the Welsh Government’s economic action plan, with social care at the heart of it as a part of the foundation economy.

“It’s very much around local jobs and local jobs and how that actually sustains local communities.

“Equally important is how it will alleviate some of the pressures of the health and social care system not least NHS services which are going to be under increasing pressure in the years ahead with significant numbers of older people.”