WORK has begun on a major cons- truction project to build a new care home for the elderly in Horfield.

The developer Earlplace has completed a land swap with Bristol City Council over a site off Kellaway Avenue, exchanging land at the rear of the site for land at the front.

As part of the deal, Earlplace will build a new care home for elderly people on the front of the site and a new state-of-the-art centre for people with complex learning difficulties at the back, to replace Concord Lodge.

The new Concord Lodge will provide more personalised services and will be designed to enable residents to live more independently. The existing Concord Lodge building will be demolished when the new unit opens early in 2010.

The 76-room care home will be the first of a new type. A third of the rooms will be for dementia sufferers, a third will be nursing rooms and a third will be care suites with sitting rooms.

All three types of rooms will have en-suite facilities and the home will include gardens, terraces, a hair salon, coffee lounge and a shop.

Earlplace signed a deal with a leading independent care home provider who will employ 60 people to run the centre.

Tim Malby, managing director of Earlplace, said the project was bucking the trend in the property industry.

He said: "There are very few major projects coming through at the moment, but this is a glorious exception.

"We have secured multi-million pound funding through Barclays, have completed a deal with Bristol City Council to create a new centre for them and have signed a long lease with an operator, one of the country's leading care providers."