Construction work on a new £13.4 million dementia home in Surbiton is expected to begin in January next year, Kingston Council (RBK) said.

RBK approved planning permission for the proposed state-of-the-art care home in June this year.

On Thursday (November 21), the Council announced that the the Children's and Adults' Care and Education Committee had "authorised the implementation of the construction stage".

In other words, building work on the new home can now go ahead.

Demolition of the existing site on Brown's Road in Surbiton is expected to start in January next year.

Stephen Taylor, Director of Adult Social Services at RBK, said that the home would help support increasing numbers of residents living with dementia in the borough.

"Kingston Council is committed to ensuring that there is high quality care available for older residents who need additional support," he said.

"It is estimated that more than 1,500 residents in the borough are living with dementia and this figure is expected to rise to more than 2,100 people by 2027.

"The council currently relies on the private sector market to provide most of the bed-based care and this process is becoming increasingly expensive.

"Our new, state of the art facility will allow us to be more cost efficient, whilst responding to the ever-growing demand for services by providing the very best in dementia care for our residents," he added.

Indeed, the demands of an ageing population in the UK mean that more and more elderly people find themselves in need of comprehensive care.

In the UK alone there are currently around 850,000 people with dementia and that is projected to reach 1.6 million people by 2040 according to the Alzheimers Society.

Proposals for the new home were scrutinised by experts at the Dementia Services Development Centre (DSDC), who are based at the University of Stirling.

"The overall scheme sets very high standards of dementia accessible design," DSDC's Dr Martin Quirke said.

"It includes several excellent examples of the application of research evidenced dementia design principles that will support residents to overcome physical and cognitive impairments, helping them to maintain independence for longer," he added.

Among the DSDC's endorsements for the project were the 'household' layouts of each unit inside the home, and South-facing gardens, RBK said.