Council urged to 'think again' on Larch Court proposal
Larch Court residents expressed their concerns last week to Councillor Barry Jarvis in the common room Moray Council plans to turn into a day care centre.
Sir, – What a thoughtless, could-not-care-less, cruel, idea to foist 30-40 extra bodies on the residents of Larch Court residential home.
As a friend of a 90-year-old resident, who has lived there happily for 15 years, I am appalled by the proposal which our council will no doubt try to railroad through.
In ‘The Northern Scot’ article last Friday, the problems with healthy and safety were merely mentioned. For the benefit of your readers, I would like to explain these problems in detail.
1) The common room, better known as “our lounge” by the residents, is not that large. Thirty to 40 extra bodies would take up at least 80% of the floor space. How can the residents possibly use it when it would be nearly fully occupied by outsiders?
2) Apart from a very small kitchen, off the lounge, there are no catering facilities. In fact, when residents hold parties, celebrations, meetings etc, all outside caterers used for these events say, “We will have to prepare all food etc at our place of business and bring it in”.
The council solution? We will do the same, every day, up to seven days a week, and bring in the required amount of lunches, teas, coffees etc.
3) When are the residents going to be ‘allowed’ to hold their well-attended functions? In the evenings?
That is not on, as most of them retire very early after supper and do not want to stay up late. In fact, half of them are too old to stay up late.
4) “Our lounge” is situated on the top floor, accessed by two flights of stairs or an unreliable lift that can accommodate six-eight people at most, or only two wheelchairs, at a push.
5) There are no public toilet facilities on this floor, only private ones. There are, however, two on the ground floor, both single occupancy, one male, one female.
At the time of writing, various friends and relatives of the lovely residents of Larch Court are being contacted in order to form a strong protest group, who will seek legal advice.
So come on you Moray councillors, think again, or roll on next local elections polling day.
Mind you, could the council not accommodate these folk in their brand new head office? Surely a common room could be found for their use, and I am sure said office will have a canteen large enough to feed a small army. It would save money by not transporting hot food etc around on a daily basis.
Oh, I forgot, the ‘office’ does not open at the weekends. – Yours etc,
H. Samuel
Church Road, Duffus.
