Care home opportunity lost

Sir, – In his letter of February 7 (“Care homes for East Neuk”) James Bowman criticised Fife Council for failing thus far to find a suitable site between Crail and Elie to replace Anstruther’s ailing Ladywalk House and for apparently lacking impetus to proceed.

A more appropriate criticism of the council would be their failure to promulgate their own earlier proposal to rebuild in part of the adjoining Bankie Park.

Then, faced with a clever and well organised but misleading campaign to Keep Bankie Park Green, the council forbade its employees to speak in favour of their plan and conspicuously failed to argue their own case.

This was despite the proposed site already being owned by the council, and the existing recreational facilities of Bankie Park being preserved.

No other site in the East Neuk can be acquired without considerable cost and we all know councils are currently so strapped for cash that they cannot fulfill their existing statutory requirements, so the chances of a replacement care home must be near zero.

If only a determined effort had been made at the time to sell the advantages of rebuilding at the current site.

The Ladywalk House replacement could have been well under way by now.

W W Motion. St Andrews Road, Anstruther.