Wellburn Care Home could be set for a major new facility — just months after it was feared the well-known service would be lost forever.
Plans to build a new 60-bedroom residential care facility at Wellburn House, in Liff Road, have been submitted to Dundee City Council.
If given the go-ahead, work on the new facility will get under way in 2017, and will be built within the grounds of Wellburn House, on a 7,900 sq m area of land, just south of Liff Road and west of the current care home’s main driveway.
The plans include a chapel, a conference room, lounge areas and a sensory garden. The application was submitted by James F Stephen Architects, on behalf of the Diocese of Dunkeld.
The Diocese owns Wellburn House having stepped in to save the facility from closure earlier this year.
A spokesman for the diocese of Dunkeld said: “We have submitted planning permission to build a new residential facility in the grounds of Wellburn Care Home which we hope will enable us to care for more people in need.
“The Little Sisters of the Poor served the people of Dundee faithfully for over 150 years, and we are pleased to be able to continue their good work.”
Lochee councillor Tom Ferguson welcomed the plans and said the new facility will be a positive addition to Lochee, and the city as a whole.
He added: “If this happens, it would be another, real community asset.
“I believe the powers-that-be at Wellburn wanted a like-for-like facility, and it appears that is what will happen — albeit on a more modern scale.”
Wellburn Nursing Home was at risk of closure after The Little Sisters of the Poor announced last October that they could no longer continue to run the facility.
However, the Diocese of Dunkeld stepped in and bought the Lochee institution from the Little Sisters in March, with a view to continuing the work done by the nuns.
The Diocese now wants to increase the capacity of the facility in Lochee.
The Little Sisters of the Poor was founded in France during the 19th Century, and has had nuns in Dundee since 1863.
The increasing age of the existing group of nuns — and a lack of new members — led the Little Sisters to announce they could no longer continue their “mission” at Wellburn, bringing to an end 152 years of caring for the city’s vulnerable and elderly on 31 July 2015.
Evening Telegraph, 14 October 2015