A 'LUXURY' care home with a cinema, cafe, piano bar and hair salon could be on its way to Dunfermline.

Proposals have been submitted to Fife Council for the erection of a new 60-bed facility on the former Royal Air Force/Navy strategic command centre site – which closed in 1996 – adjacent to Pitreavie Castle.

The care home, which has been designed by Edinburgh-based Yeoman McAllister Architects, will include a range of communal facilities for residents to enjoy including external garden areas, a café, piano bar, games room, hair salon and cinema.

It will also create 65 full-time and part-time jobs.

The facility is proposed by the Glasgow-based Simply Group and will be operated by Morar Living.

Should planning permission be granted, it will provide specialist respite, dementia, palliative, convalescence and nursing care for both public and private-funded residents within an environment compliant with both the existing and emerging Care Inspectorate’s design requirements, including those on infectious diseases, which are being introduced following the outbreak of coronavirus.

Neil Dobbie, Simply’s land director, commented: “We are delighted to be bringing this much-needed state-of the-art care facility to Dunfermline.

"It has been sensitively designed to exacting standards taking cognisance of the surrounding area and will produce the highest-quality environment for our residents.”

Information submitted in support of the application identifies a requirement for an additional 120 care home bed spaces in the town, which has a rapidly-expanding population and a projected 73 per cent growth in the pensioner age group by 2043.

The facility is predicted to create 65 new full- and part-time jobs.

Dunfermline-based planning consultant Derek Scott, of Derek Scott Planning, who acts on behalf of Simply, remarked: "The proposal represents a fantastic opportunity to redevelop a brownfield site which has lain vacant for the best part of the last 25 years; to create an attractive, modern care home facility in a location that enjoys excellent access to bus- and rail-based public transport services; and which will create a significant number of care-related employment opportunities for local people.’’

Subject to receiving planning permission from the council, it's hoped that construction work could begin on the site in 2022 with the first residents moving in during 2023.