Port Elphinstone care home to be replaced

A CRUMBLING Aberdeenshire care home will be replaced with a multimillion-pound unit. Members of Aberdeenshire Council’s social work and housing committee backed a plan to build a 60-bedroom care home to replace authority-run Blythewood House at Port Elphinstone during a meeting yesterday.

A site has been selected for the home in the western outskirts of Inverurie, close to the town’s hospital.

The home will be internally split into five households, with 12 residents in each.

Dining and lounge areas are to be organised around an en-suite bedroom design.

Outside there will be a courtyard. An “acoustic” fence will minimise road noise and give extra shelter.

The total cost of the project is expected to be about £8million, which includes work to demolish Blythewood.

Speaking after the meeting, Westhill and district councillor Ron McKail said approval of the new home was “excellent news”, which will bring care into the 21st century. “Each room will have en suite facilities including a shower and will be designed to accommodate wheel- chairs. This will ensure comfortably-sized rooms.

“The size of each unit will have 12 residents maximum, which will add to the quality of care, making it more suitable for the occupants to socialise, and this will dispense (with) the institutional feeling we get from larger elderly person’s homes.”

Building work should begin in September.