Facilities for adults who need to recover from brain injuries are being significantly expanded in Swindon.

Work has started on building new wards, a rehabilitation / step-down centre, bungalows and a café and occupation therapy rooms at the Avalon Centre which already has buildings just off Hindle Way next door to the Edison Park trading estate in Dorcan.

The very scrubby green space between the business park’s building and the Avalon Centre’s existing buildings is being cleared to prepare the site for a major expansion of the centre’s capability.

It already has a 20-bed facility providing rehabilitation services to adults who have suffered an acquired brain injury.

(Image: Aled Thomas)The new buildings will include an eight-bed locked ward rehabilitation service,  a 10-bed ‘slow stream’ step-down rehabilitation service and five independent living bungalows, adding up to 23 new places.

There will also be a small building hosting a café, and a room for occupational therapy.

The bungalows will feature their own enclosed rear gardens and will be the last step in the whole rehabilitation process

Avalon’s application said: “ The additional buildings are arranged to promote a ‘campus’ feel, framing areas of landscaping for communal use.”

The therapy centre says using the space will allow it to offer much more integrated therapy: “The services offered at The Avalon Centre are much needed for people who have been left with unwanted behaviours and complex needs.

“The clear advantage of extending the existing services at The Avalon Centre is that it will offer the ‘whole patient pathway’ on site. 

"Meaning that patients can stay on-site longer as they improve and progress through to the different levels of rehabilitation from the more structured ward environment, through to a step-down service and finally onto the independent living bungalows just before discharge.”

(Image: Avalon Centre) Even the location in Dorcan just off Dorcan Way near the  Morrisons supermarket is seen as an advantage: “The secluded, but not isolated, nature of the application site, which maximises the ability of the proposal to offer effective treatment for mental and physical health.”

Diggers and cranes are on site now, with the company’s construction plan just having been signed off as appropriate by Swindon Borough Council planners last week.

The initial phase of the work, clearing the site and getting in all the ground-level infrastructure, such as drainage and sewers and the ground floors of the buildings is expected to take 15 weeks.

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