Councillors veto bid to put £5m replacement Anstruther care home to private sector

Elected members threw their weight behind a new 24-bed home with 12 supported housing units and shared services at Mayview Court, knocking back options to hand the building to either a private venture or the voluntary sector.

Around £5.1 million has been allocated for the East Neuk project to replace the existing Ladywalk home, which is in need of urgent and expensive electrical and hot water repairs. However, the project needs a further £1.4 million to be fully realised. Officers aim to bring this amount forward from a future budget.

The flats will be funded with a combination of Fife Council housing money and Scottish Government grants.

Conservative group leader Cllr Dave Dempsey was defeated in his bid to push the decision back to February in order to address what he called "shortcomings" in the detail of the alternative choices.

He shared concerns hinted at in reports that the budget available for Anstruther was dependent on the Cupar project, despite officers confirming money could be reallocated for Anstruther from future spending.

"It's the 21st century equivalent of Henry Ford's colour chart: you can have any option as long as it's option four (the publicly run project)," he said.

"Since we decided to defer Cupar to the next meeting the very least we can do is defer this decision to the next meeting and have a decent look at the alternative."

However councillors elected to back the public-run option promoted by administration social care spokesman Cllr David Graham at 17 votes to four.

Cupar care home plans on hold after councillors say they were not...

SNP group leader Cllr David Alexander, seconding the publicly run venture, said: "David and Tony can dance around the arguments all they want but this continual opposition to public care home is non-stop.

"The reality is public care homes are the best-run and the safest in the country. To close a public care home right now is an outrage. I'm afraid your arguments are falling to pieces."

Labour councillor Altany Craik said choosing any other option than the preferred one would break a council pledge to replace ageing care homes made in 2012 and renewed at the last election in 2017.

"It's in the joint administration agreement - the policy of this council is that we will invest in public care homes," he said, adding that the Conservative bid to derail the proceedings was "specious".

Concluding the discussions, Labour council co-leader Cllr David Ross said: "It does get very tiresome having to justify time and time again our approach to in-house provision of care places.

"This gives us much more flexibility that is very much needed, it allows us to very much set standards that others should live up to, to influence practice and market.

"We are the provider of last resort and crucially, people want to be in council care homes and there is a demand for it and that's what we're looking to provide."

A total of £18.3 million was allocated in the council’s capital plan to replace publicly run care homes in Methil, Cupar and Anstruther.

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