IN a rapid U-turn County Council bosses today pledged that no married couples would be split up in the shake-up of their care homes -- 35 of which they want to shut.

This prompt response is welcome. As is LCC leader Hazel Harding's extension of the promise to care home residents who are 'close friends' and also dread being separated.

Such fears should, of course, should never have afflicted any couples living in care. The very notion of them being torn apart was cruel beyond belief.

And it is evident that this swift turnaround was triggered by the outrage in reaction to this newspaper's exposure of the case of 54-years-wed, wheelchair-bound husband and wife, Harold and Ann Hacking, who faced being forced to live apart.

Hopefully, this backtracking by the County Council is a sign that at last those proposing these care home sweeping closures are wakening up to the wholesale human tragedy that the strategy entails -- not just to residents who are married couples or close friends, but to practically all of them.

For though with this U-turn, the fear has abated for some, it continues for hundreds of others. They don't want to be uprooted from the accommodation they regard as home. They don't want to be split from companions. They don't want to lose the carers they know and trust.

Even though they have now been told they will not be parted, Harold and Ann Hacking still want an assurance that they will not have to move at all. And so do hundreds of other residents.

The fact is that, for all the concessions the LCC has granted -- including the previous pledge that none will be moved to private care homes against their will -- these closure plans are too much all at once. A much greater U-turn is required to avert the great human tragedy they threaten... and the political disaster that is growing by the day for these misguided county councillors.