IN a simply furnished office in Wroughton's High Street, retired RAF Group Captain Ian Spalding is tying up the loose ends of a £1.6m project that will look after some of Wiltshire's most vulnerable people.

When it opens a few weeks from now the building will provide care and a fulfilling future for 18 adults who suffer from serious learning difficulties and are also in failing health or physically handicapped.

Ian is chief executive of the non-profit making White Horse Care Trust, and he and his board of trustees provide homes and loving care for adults who, before the age of political correctness, would have been coldly described as mentally handicapped.

Their disabilities are so severe that they have never been able to hold down a job or look after themselves.

But the 13-year-old trust aims to give them quality of life.

The 18 who will be cared for by the new Holly Lodge in Pewsey will be part of a family of 63.

The rest live in 13 houses owned by the Trust in Swindon, Wootton Bassett, Purton, Highworth, Baydon, Marlborough, where there are two, Easton Royal, Shalbourne and Potterne.

The oldest is 87-year-old Myrtle Gardner who as a child was sent to a workhouse in Dorset when her parents decided they could not cope with her.

If she had been born 80 years later Myrtle, although a slow learner, would almost certainly have been able to find a job, and possibly marry and have a family.

"The people who will live at Holly Lodge are different because most of them are wheelchair-bound," said Ian. "Some cannot even feed themselves."

But like the rest of the Trust family they will get the best possible quality of life.

"If other people can go to the pub for a drink in the evening, or have days out or go on holidays, there's no reason why our residents shouldn't be able to do the same," said Ian.

The new nursing home will replace an existing smaller Holly Lodge on the site of the old Pewsey Hospital.

Built in partnership with the Fosseway Housing Association, it will have single rooms for all its occupants, divided into three separate units of six, its own kitchen and dining room.

The aim, said Mr Spalding, is to combine state of the art amenities with the homely, family atmosphere that prevails at all the Trust's homes.

The registered charity, is also a major non-profit making business, employing 150 people. Its current wages bill is £2.8m a year, including staff training.

It costs upwards of £750 a head a week to look after the Trust's residents. The fees are covered largely by the statutory benefits to which they are entitled.

It sounds a great deal of money, said Ian. But it is less than the cost of looking after hospital patients and prisoners.

"We are offering quality care to people with severe disabilities, care which they deserve."