The cleared site of a popular Worcester pub, The Coppertops, will become a specialist care home, after plans put forward by city-based company Sunflower Properties have been given the go ahead.

The plot in Oldbury Road on the western edge of the city housed the pub for nearly 48 years before it closed earlier this year.

Now, once work starts in the new year, it will become a 42-bedroom care home in a two-story building.

Each bedroom will have an ensuite toilet and wet-room. The rooms will be arranged in a Y-shaped arrangement, with other facilities such as administrative offices in the base of the ‘Y’.

One wing of the building will contain rooms for people who need more complex care.

The application to Worcester City Council planners by Sunflower properties said: “The proposed scheme has been designed to accommodate a significant portion of wheelchair users requiring specialist care with all occupant areas design as wheelchair accessible.

“Bedrooms, ensuites and other important resident areas have been designed to acute hospital, Health Building Note standards where necessary ensuring provision of both mobile and ceiling mounted hoists.”

Councillor Lynn Denham said: “This will give the opportunity for people who need specialist care to have that nearer to their home, and I should think it will bring a significant employment benefit to the area as well.”

While the scheme was passed unanimously by the councillors on the planning committee at the Guildhall some concern was expressed that the building will have only 43 parking spaces, with 16 allocated to visitors and the rest for staff.

Councillor Roger Berry said: “This area of Worcester is next to the University and is an area already with significant parking issues. There ought to be more consideration for the adequacies of parking.”

Another care home will also be built using the former buildings of a long-disused school – St Placides in Battenhall Avenue, southwest of London Road.

Councillors on the committee voted 10 to one in favour of the scheme which will see the main school building converted, while some extensions are demolished and new ones constructed, to form 32 retirement flats and a health centre