By John Fuller

Last updated at 14:37, Friday, 10 September 2010

Allerdale councillors have expressed concern over plans not to reopen a Keswick care home.

As part of a three-month consultation period over the future of the Ravensfield Residential Care Home, the authority has been asked by Cumbria County Council to register its view.

The hotel has been closed since the November floods.

Members of Allerdale’s executive panel said they were concerned at the county council plan to permanently close the High Hill home.

Scrutiny committee member Alan Tyson read out the panel’s report to the council’s executive committee on Wednesday.

He said that out of the 22 hotel residents before the floods, 12 had expressed an interest to return while others were either happy in their new homes or had died.

Keswick town council has already objected to the plan to close the three star 30-bed hotel.

Councillors approved a recommendation by the authority’s scrutiny committee, which suggested that alternative measures could be put in place.

They include covering the gap in provision that the closure of Ravensfield would create as the use of other care homes in the town and the extra care initiative did not take the growing elderly population into account.

The report added that members felt strongly that, if Ravensfield was closed and sold, the money should be channelled back into elderly care in the area.

Most of the 29 staff who were employed at Ravensfield before it was evacuated have been temporarily redeployed until a decision on the home’s future is made.

It is expected that if the closure goes ahead, these staff will be redeployed with little to no recourse for redundancy.

First published at 11:28, Friday, 10 September 2010
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk