New opening
Elm Lodge: luxury care in peaceful Hampshire
Forest Care recently opened its latest 60-bed luxury care home, Elm Lodge, in a quiet, village location in Hampshire. The Care Home Environment editor Matt Seex visited this beautifully designed new home to chat with Forest Care’s commercial manager Jon Huxford about this latest addition to Forest Care’s portfolio
Officially opened in December 2024, Elm Lodge – a purpose-built, 60-bed, luxury care home – sits on a landscaped three acre plot in the Hampshire countryside, surrounded by fields, woods, and paddocks. Established in 1981, Forest Care owns
and operates five care homes across the South of England – Cedar Lodge and Holly Lodge, both in Surrey, plus Oak Lodge, Rowan Lodge, and now its latest addition, Elm Lodge, all in Hampshire. The Care Home Environment visited Elm Lodge on a grey February day to chat with Forest Care’s commercial manager Jon Huxford about the provider’s impressive new home, its ethos, and plans for the future. While it may have been relentlessly wet and cold outside, Elm Lodge – already home to around ten residents – offered a warm and very welcome respite from the grim winter weather.
A village location
A multi-million pound project, the two- storey Elm Lodge was constructed by Cove Construction – a sister company of Forest Care – on a greenfield site that originally formed part of the garden of a nearby private home. Elm Lodge is accessed via the unassuming Thackham’s Lane, a couple of miles north of the M3 – although one would have no idea that a busy motorway was relatively close by, as Elm Lodge and its surroundings are peaceful and calm, and it feels very much as though the home is nestled deep in the Hampshire countryside. Elm Lodge is located on the south west boundary of Hartley Wintney, a village which, for around 600 years, was the site of a royal deer park. To the south west sits the village of Hook, which was once located on the route of the London to Exeter stagecoach, and which saw much of its growth in the late 1800s when the building
March 2025
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A u-shaped design around an attractive outdoor courtyard
of its railway station established Hook as a link between Basingstoke a few miles further to the west and London Waterloo. South east of Elm Lodge, on the other side the M3, lies the town of Fleet, which, like Hook, saw major development in the 19th century with the establishment of the London railway.
The area is a relatively affluent one, with a sizeable (and growing) older population looking for high-quality care options. The catchment area for Elm Lodge consists of a roughly ten mile radius, taking in Basingstoke, Hook and Fleet, plus the surrounding villages, including Hartley Wintney itself.
Construction of Elm Lodge commenced in 2020, and – in common with a great many builds – almost immediately ran into delays and issues caused by the pandemic. As Jon puts it: “[The build] did slow down to almost
a stop while Covid was happening, but with the builder and contract being in-house, we could slow construction down and concentrate on other things.” Besides the pandemic, however, the challenges encountered during the build were of a standard nature, and Forest Care’s focus throughout remained on delivering the best care home possible.
With all of Forest Care’s homes being
located within easy reach of each other, the opportunity to build the provider’s fifth home between Hook and Fleet was one that the operator jumped upon. “It’s within 15 minutes of the rest of our homes, so it’s ideal,” says Jon. “We don’t want to be in the car for two hours, or at the other end of the country. It fits within our of Hampshire/ Surrey border.” Forest Care is keen to look at future sites within the same area – building and opening new homes at a relaxed pace using the operator’s tried-and-tested 60- bed model, employing a “hands-on” and organic approach when it comes to both
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