Trudy Harrison MP has pledged her support for a community development plan which aims to build 45 dementia friendly homes in Distington.
On Saturday, Trudy attended the Community Land Event hosted by Distington Big Local LTD to learn more about their proposals to create accommodation for the elderly and people living with Dementia.
Mrs Harrison was among more than 200 visitors who went along to find out more about the development plans.
Managed by a local board of 13 residents and the Parish Church, Distington Big Local is a Big Lottery funded project working to ‘help make Distington an even better place to live’.
Mrs Harrison, said: “This is community activism at its best! A brilliant example of can-do people in their community knowing what their area needs, and getting on with delivering it. The Big Local initiative is really helping Distington which has so much going on, the community centre activities are brilliant.”
Distington is one of 150 towns and villages across the country involved in the Big Local initiative, with communities working together to decide on local priorities.
Each Big Local is allocated one million pounds to use for community projects over a 10 year period.
The proposals to build an assisted living development for the elderly and those living with dementia is just one of many projects managed by Distington Big Local over the past five years.
Director, Sue Hunter said preliminary examination of feedback forms for the development plans highlighted a strong majority in favour of the scheme.
She said: “Over the last few months DBL Ltd in conjunction with Halsall Lloyd Partnership has been conducting a community consultation and feasibility study on 1.7 acres of derelict land which they purchased last year.
“A need for elderly housing prompted the board to put forward a preliminary design for an innovative scheme incorporating dementia friendly housing. All the 45 units would be high spec, but affordable for the local community (rental/purchase).
“We were very grateful that Trudy came and was interested in our project, offering support in any way she could - it was great to meet her and know she is behind us 100 per cent.”
