A new care home for Hartford care with age-restricted apartments and public gateway space

Highwood has completed a radical new care home and public gateway scheme on land in Selborne Road in Alton, Hampshire. Construction on the new 67-bed care home and 28 affordable, age-restricted apartments began in September 2024. The project was another landmark project for Highwood’s partnership with Octopus Real Estate’s flagship Octopus Health Fund and Hartford Care, the leading UK care provider.

Highwood received planning consent in June 2023 following an extensive consultation process with East Hampshire District Council and local residents. Construction began in September 2023 and was completed in 2025, welcoming new residents shortly after. The finished development meets a clear and growing need for older persons’ accommodation across Alton and the wider East Hampshire region.

Occupying a 1.37-hectare site to the west of the A339, around 900m from Alton town centre, the project comprises two connected parcels: the main care home with neighbouring apartments and a generous public open space that forms a green gateway into the town. The gateway park, created through a design competition won by Deacon Design, features wildflower planting, lighting, seating and new pedestrian links to the Writer’s Way walking and cycling route.

Within this connected setting, Alton Care Home provides luxurious, purpose-built accommodation for older people alongside training facilities, communal amenities and landscaped outdoor spaces that foster wellbeing, dignity and community life. With generous accommodation and stunning specifications, the care home offers luxurious en suite wet rooms, nursing stations and a range of superb communal lounges and dining rooms as well as hair and beauty rooms, a cinema and gym. Training rooms, offices and kitchens are housed in the main care home block while the retirement apartments are housed in a second, neighbouring block.