Plans for a state-of-the-art care home for older people and a wellbeing centre have been given the green light.

Care UK's new home and adjacent wellbeing centre will be built on the former Great Heath Primary School site near St John's Close in Mildenhall which has been vacant since the school moved to a new site in Girton Close.

The care home will accommodate 60 people and will provide nursing and specialist dementia care services as well as residential care.

It will also have a garden and sitting-out area, a café and hairdressers on the ground floor and a small cinema on the upper floor.

The wellbeing centre will offer day care clubs and activities for older people who live independently in the wider community.

Care UK was granted permission to demolish the old school buildings and to build the new facilities by Forest Heath District Council's planning and development control committee.

It is Care UK's second successful application in the organisation's £60 million investment programme to establish 10 new care homes and 10 wellbeing centres in Suffolk between now and 2016. The first was a care home and wellbeing centre in Ipswich.

Chris Hopkinson, regional operations director for Care UK, said: 'We are very pleased to get the go ahead, especially because in addition to a new care home this development will provide a wellbeing day care centre which will be a new service for this community.'

Work on the project is set to be carried out by Castleoak and will start in May this year.