ELDERLY residents in Haslington are to be moved to new homes when their present home closes this month.

The charity which runs Crosslands Residential Home for the Elderly, CLS Care Services, announced the closure on Monday.

The company said it was due to financial pressures and that staff and residents were being consulted about the timing of the closure.

Residents will be offered alternative accommodation and the charity is also hoping to relocate the 33 staff at the home without the need for redundancies.

A CLS spokesman said Crosslands currently loses more than £100,000 a year and needs at least £500,000 spending on it to bring up to the standard of the firm's other homes.

CLS Operations Director Nick Dykes said: "Although this is a sad day for Crosslands we are confident that all residents will be offered suitable alternative accommodation of their choice.

"We and other residential home managers are finding it increasingly difficult to sustain small uneconomic homes.

"Fees paid by the government for residential care have fallen behind significantly in real terms in recent years and although a larger organisation like CLS can weather some of the storms there are times when we have to make difficult decisions like this.

"There just isn't significant demand in the Haslington area to justify that kind of expenditure and we don't have the resources to subsidise the loss any longer."

CLS runs 37 other residential homes in Cheshire and has no plans to close any of its other homes.

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