Lack of housing for key workers a factor in closure of Caladh Sona care home, says MP
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The closure of a North Coast care home due to staffing issues highlights the need for affordable homes for key workers, Sutherland MP Jamie Stone has said.
Mr Stone made the reference to Caladh Sona care home at Talmine during a Westminster Hall Debate on the Affordable Homes Programme.
NHS Highland announced last week that the six-bed unit was set to close within three months because it was no longer considered safe to operate it due to a dearth of staff.
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Mr Stone told colleagues at Westminster that one of the reasons staff could not be recruited was because there was no available affordable housing.
He urged Government ministers to “better support local authorities to reserve housing for key workers such as healthcare staff, teachers and police".
He said: "If a house comes on the market on the north coast of Sutherland, it’s snapped up as a holiday home or becomes an AirBnB.
“That means that school rolls drop and we have that old dark monster which we had for far too long, for hundreds of years in the Highlands, which is depopulation.
“People up sticks and go away. Going to Canada, Australia and to America and never coming back. That’s why we have the diaspora of Scots all over the world, or one of the reasons.”
Mr Stone suggested income from wind farms could be used to help the local authority or a housing association to buy properties when they came on the market.
“The expression has already been referred to – it’s an old one we used to use – key worker housing,” he continued.
“That is the key to doing it because if you can offer a carer – even if they only come up for five days a week to the north coast – but if you offer them somewhere to live that they can afford, then you’re getting some way to looking after the old people.
“As the oldest member of my party, I can remember when the houses were being built in the 1960s in my home town of Tain and it was great. There was hope for people being housed. It’s a very, very different situation today.”
