Wokingham Care Home: 64 Beds, 100 Jobs, Opens Early 2028

Building work has started on a 64-bedroom care home at 171 Evendons Lane in Wokingham. The operator, Boutique Care Homes, marked the start of construction on 3 September with the Mayor of Wokingham, Cllr Alwyn Jones, cutting the first sod.

The home will be called Evendon View. It is due to take its first residents in early 2028 and to employ around 100 people once it is running (Boutique Care Homes).

What is being built

The company says Evendon View will offer:

• residential care, dementia care and short stays
• a bistro, a hair and beauty salon and a hobby room
• lifestyle suites with kitchenettes
• landscaped gardens, a nature paddock and a wildlife orchard of about a dozen apple trees
• meeting and activity space it intends to open to local groups

It will be the seventh home in the group, which is based in Romford and won Care Home Group of the Year (Small) at the National Care Awards in 2023 and 2025.

Cllr Jones, who was joined on site by the Evendons ward councillor Louise Timlin, said the team had explained “how a muddy area will be transformed into a luxury care home with outdoor areas where residents can enjoy the benefits of nature”.

Ameet Kotecha, the company’s founder and managing director, said Wokingham “is going to get a care home built for the way people actually want to live in later life”.

Three years and three months of paperwork

The spade going in on 3 September was the end of a long planning process, not the start of one. The council’s planning register tells that story in full, and the timing of the last approval is striking.

The chain, all of it approved:

Read the last line again. The final four conditions were signed off on 1 September 2026, and the ground was broken two days later.

The outline application went in on 5 June 2023, its public consultation closed on 15 January 2024, and it was decided by planning committee rather than by officers on 12 November 2024. That is seventeen months from application to decision, and three years and three months from application to construction.

The single busiest document is 252255, which discharged 26 conditions at once in February 2026. Among them: construction management, protection of existing trees, a landscape and ecological management plan, ecological permeability, hedgerows, contamination, noise impact, odour extraction, drainage, cycle parking, a travel plan, BREEAM compliance and a bat licence.

All of these are on the council’s planning portal at planning.wokingham.gov.uk, searchable by the site address.

The dates

What it means for you

• If you live on or near Evendons Lane, expect construction traffic for some time yet. The approved conditions include a construction management plan, a construction access route and a communications plan, so there is a written standard the site is meant to work to. Quote application 252255 if you need to raise something.
• If you are looking for work in care, around 100 roles are expected across care, catering, housekeeping and lifestyle. The company has not published a recruitment date, and the home is not due to open until early 2028.
• If you are looking for a care home now, Evendon View is years away and is not yet registered with the Care Quality Commission.
• The site was not open countryside. The consent was granted for the demolition of existing commercial buildings on the plot, and the approvals carry a biodiversity net gain plan, a bat licence condition and a great crested newt delivery partner.

For other decisions across the borough, see our Wokingham planning news page. For what is dug up where, see Wokingham roadworks and travel.

Sources

• Boutique Care Homes: Wokingham’s Mayor breaks ground at Evendon View (64 bedrooms, around 100 jobs, facilities, early 2028 opening, the quotes)
• Wokingham Borough Council planning register, applications 231351, 243082, 250858, 251483, 252179, 252255 and 260870 at 171 Evendons Lane, RG41 4EH (descriptions, receipt and decision dates, decision level, conditions discharged)