THE proposals to close most of Lancashire County Council's care homes for older people are completely unacceptable.

Labour county councillors say that there are no easy options, but that is because the Labour government is bringing in new standards which will be very expensive to meet, yet not making any new resources available to those who run the care homes.

This issue is certainly about much more than whether individual care homes are kept open. More elderly people would indeed like to be able to stay in their own homes, but once they are settled in a care home, I believe they don't usually want to move from there, either.

However, we have an ageing population, and when the deadline for the new standards passes in 2007, many privately-run homes which are too costly to upgrade will also be forced to close.

If we close homes now, we are likely to be short of places in 2007, even with a greater proportion of the elderly being cared for at home. We are likely to end up with hospital beds clogged up just because some rooms in care homes were a few inches smaller than they should have been.

The Government should recognise that there are more old people living longer and needing more care and that this means that more money will be needed. We owe a great debt to our pensioners and they deserve to be treated properly.

As a Green Party councillor I shall be encouraging Labour members not to accept mass closures of care homes. Instead, they should go back to the Government and say that, while improved care home standards are in principle a good thing, the consequences for the elderly people of Lancashire of implementing the new standards with no additional funding, are too severe to be acceptable.

COUNTY COUNCILLOR JONATHAN SEAR (Green Party), Willow Lane, Lancaster.