A CARE home development is celebrating a major milestone.A topping out ceremony marked the completion of the latest stage of a luxury 84-bed Barchester care home at Kesgrave.

A CARE home development is celebrating a major milestone.

A topping out ceremony marked the completion of the latest stage of a luxury 84-bed Barchester care home at Kesgrave.

The new Barchester Alice Grange Care Home, built by Suffolk construction firm Carters, will cater for elderly and frail residents from local families, people with dementia, the young and physically disabled and those with respite and palliative care needs.

It is due for completion in March 2008, and primary school pupils from the area are to be invited to join in naming the home's new units.

Barchester Healthcare employs around 13,000 people at over 160 sites throughout the UK, and cares from 10,000 residents nationwide.

Kesgrave Town Council chairman John Briggs was joined by other council officials as he performed the commemorative topping out ceremony, along with the grandson of the former Kesgrave resident who once owned the farmland on which the home has been built.

A Suffolk Punch and plough weathervane was unveiled to mark the occasion.

General manager for the new care home Catherine Condon said the story of landowner Alice Jolly, of Grange Farm, and the old Suffolk Punches which once worked the land was an important part of the local community's history.

“We wanted the new building to incorporate a constant reminder of the work that once took place on her farmland,” she said.

“Looking after others in the community was something very close to Alice's heart and we want the Barchester Alice Grange home to offer care and a fresh lease of life for those from many more local families.”