ABOUT 40 years after the last train left Bourton railway station, the disused building is set to be demolished to make way for a new care home.

Gloucestershire County Council, which owns the Station Road site upon which the building stands, is investing £50 million into creating a new care home in Bourton and replacing Stow’s Ashton House care home with an extra-care housing scheme.

The county council devised these proposals, which would make more than 100 beds available, to meet demand for such facilities.

The county council is working with the Order of St John Care Trust, which has received Cotswold District Council’s planning permission to build the new care home on the site of the station, which closed in the 1960s and is currently used as a highways depot.

Bourton’s county councillor, David Thorpe, said the financial recession meant Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway had scrapped its plan to demolish the building and reassemble it at Broadway.

Coun Thorpe said: “Originally there was an idea that the railway station, which is really of no particular long-term value, was going to be taken down and relocated.

“Given the difficult economic times we are in, that plan is not progressing and so Gloucestershire County Council is looking at other alternatives.

“It would’ve been nice, some ten years ago, to save it for history purposes but I think we’ve gone past that point and we have to look to the future.

“Removing an eyesore and providing a care home is a higher priority.”