Delay hits Highland Council care homes project

HIGHLAND Council is delaying its £30million programme for building five replacement care homes because of its continuing budget crisis, the Press and Journal can reveal.

The three-month postponement of a tendering process, proposed for January, will be confirmed at next week’s full council meeting – the last before Christmas.

A pledge to “build and run five new care homes” is a key element of the ruling Independent/Liberal Democrat/Labour coalition’s revised manifesto which was published last year.

The authority has blamed its decision on a recession-induced search for £60million of “savings” to balance its books over the next three years. The region’s social work service continues to face a projected £3.9million overspend this year – the largest of any department.

The decision to impose a tendering freeze was agreed at a private meeting of Independent councillors yesterday in Inverness. Coalition partners have since been briefed on the situation.

Housing and social work chairwoman Margaret Davidson declined to comment before Friday’s publication of agenda papers.

But budget leader David Alston said: “We’re not making any decisions about the future of the care-home programme. What we’re doing is giving ourselves time to examine this in detail.”

While demolition work is already under way to prepare the way for replacing the Inverness homes of Ach an Eas and Burnside with a single venue, the tendering process for that project and others at Muir of Ord and Fort William will now be in April. The tendering process for homes in Grantown and Tain will follow those.

Invernevis House, Fort William, will be replaced by a new home at Caol; Grant House, Grantown, with a new home adjacent to the existing building; Urray House, Muir of Ord, with a new home beside the existing site; and Duthac House, Tain, with a new building at Craighill Terrace.

Accusing the coalition of “back-pedalling”, SNP opposition group leader John Finnie said: “There is no reason when the Scottish Government has given revenue to Highland Council of twice the rate of inflation that there should be any reining back on a commitment that is hugely important, namely the care of our older people.”