AFTER more than two years of fundraising, care home staff have opened a new sensory room for residents.

Staff at Mount Vale Care Home, on Yafforth Road in Northallerton, have staged fetes, cake bakes and even taken part in a sponsored sky dive to raise the £8,500 needed to create a sensory room for their residents.

Today (Friday, April 24) they officially opened the new room, which is situated in the home’s “memory lane” wing.

Activities co-ordinator at the home, Rebecca Clark said: “The idea came from our Memory Lane nurse Hannah, who thought it would be lovely to have a sensory room for the residents.

“If you have someone who can’t speak or communicate very well and they can go into a sensory room like this, you get a real response from them.

“Most of the staff here were involved in the fundraising for the room and lots of the residents' families helped keep it going by buying raffle tickets or making donations.”

One of the first to use the room was a resident of the home John Sanders, a former curator of the Natural History Museum in London who also worked for a major oil company in oil exploration.

Cutting the ribbon was Kate McGonnagel-O’Neill who volunteers at the home with her therapy dog Spike on behalf of Canine Care.

Relatives of current and former residents also attended. They included John Sterling, from Middleton St George, Darlington whose wife passed away last year. He still visits the home to keep in contact with staff.

“We were involved in this project from the beginning and my daughter did a lot of the baking to raise funds," he said.

"The care home here is exceptional and we wanted to be here to see this.”