North council to consider £2.3m care home facelifts

Plans for fully refurbishing two Highland care homes will go before the region’s councillors this week. The proposals for Ach-an-Eas in Inverness and Grant House in Grantown will cost nearly £2.3million.

Officials have stopped short of recommending further development of the two homes, however, because of the disruption to residents and the cost.

Councillors on the housing and social work committee will decide whether the refurbishment plans should go ahead at their meeting on Wednesday.

At Ach-an-Eas, a total of £220,000 of immediate refurbishment is needed.

This includes improvements to heating, roofs and doors, enlargement of the dining room and other external works.

Full refurbishment of the home, which has 24 places, is costing more than £1million, and it is also being recommended to include installing en-suite shower rooms and a platform lift, as well as works to the water, lighting and power systems.

Grant House, a 20-bed home, also requires some immediate refurbishment costing £210,000, including upgrades to bathrooms, showers and toilets and improvements to the heating, lighting and floors.

The full refurbishment, costing £780,000, will cover replacing some baths with showers, and improvements to heating, water, power and lighting.

The report also outlines options for the redevelopment of the site of the former Burnside care home in Inverness. The home has been demolished.

Now the council wants to use the site to provide social care for the elderly in the city.

Officials have drawn up a number of options for the site. Two of these involve the council developing the site for sheltered housing.

Others would see the local authority exchange the site for a larger one elsewhere in the city or sell it and use the proceeds to buy another site. A fifth option would also involve selling the site, but the money would be used to convert less popular sheltered housing units in Inverness into housing for older people. Officials have recommended carrying out further work on each option.

Earlier this month, it emerged that Highland Council spent more than £2million on preparations for five new care homes that will not be built. The local authority overturned its pledge to build new homes in Fort William, Muir of Ord, Tain, Inverness and Grantown, in June.

Figures requested by Inverness SNP councillor John Finnie revealed that just under £2million was spend on building and planning fees, surveying and in demolishing the Burnside home. An additional £250,000 was spent on the procurement project, including legal advice, technical support and survey costs.