A NEW home for cats costing £50,000 has been built at Oxfordshire Animal Sanctuary, thanks to a £30,000 donation from a technology firm.

Staff and volunteers at the sanctuary in Stadhampton said the new buildings have provided much better living conditions for the 64 cats currently needing new homes.

Twenty staff who run the sanctuary in Watlington Road and 40 regular volunteers are now finding it much easier to look after the abandoned moggies.

Milton Hill-based Infineum provided £30,000 for the three new plastic and glass blocks and the remaining £20,000 of funding was taken from other donations to the charity.

Oxfordshire Animal Sanctuary manager Iain Atkin said: "Staff at Infineum staged lots of different fundraising activities and the new cat buildings have made a big difference."

Mr Atkin said the previous wooden cattery buildings had been on the site for more than 30 years and have now been replaced with three new blocks - a quarantine block, a recovery block and a rehoming block.

He added: "The previous buildings had started to leak so it wasn't very pleasant for the cats when it started to rain.

"It's much more comfortable now for the cats and it's better for the staff and volunteers who are looking after them.

"Now that we have these new blocks there are fewer infections for the cats - it's better for their welfare and it's a better visitor experience for people visiting who want to adopt them.

"The new cattery buildings are well lit, well heated and well ventilated.

"We have got one posh cat, a Siamese, but the rest of them are moggies."

There are 64 cats at the sanctuary near Thame, 60 dogs, 14 rabbits, four goats, one sheep, a horse and a pony.

Mr Atkin said some cats stay at the sanctuary for years before they are rehomed.

They include a cat called Henry who suffered epilepsy and was recently rehomed after being abandoned in 2012.

Mr Atkin added: "Henry could have fits sometimes if he was not medicated.

"He came to us in 2012 and has now been adopted - we have a very good record of rehoming animals which come to us for all sorts of reasons.

"Sometimes families can not cope with looking after them, or they move into a property where they are not allowed to keep them.

"Pets are brought to us when marriages break up, or people decide they can't afford the vets' bills."

The new facilities for cats follow the installation of new dog kennels costing £70,000 in January last year.

More than 20,000 animals have been rehomed since the sanctuary, now a registered charity, opened in 1967 and they care for about 150 animals at any one time.

Vets bills cost about £126,300, food about £70,000 and it costs an average between £20 to £30 a week to care for each animal.

The charity fundraises through shops in Summertown, Didcot, Witney and Carterton and from public and corporate donors.

For further information visit oxfordshireanimalsanctuary.org.uk