THE owners of a nursing home which has been forced to shut at the end of the month spoke of their sorrow, yesterday.

Alba Rose nursing home, in Pickering, North Yorkshire, is closing after bosses said they could no longer survive on current accommodation rates.

Chris and Anne-Marie Whincup, whose family have run the home for 20 years, held crisis talks with North Yorkshire County Council at the start of the year, but could not reach a solution.

The home's 13 elderly residents are now looking for new accommodation.

Mr Whincup said: "It is a great shame that this valuable service to the community will be lost. People are obviously very disappointed and concerned about the residents. They are a caring bunch of staff."

Some staff will be transferred to the nursing home's residential facility at Keldhead Hall in the town, which is not affected by the closure. However, most will be made redundant.

Mr Whincup said: "The industry is at the bottom of the pile when it comes to funding. There has been massive media coverage about the situation, but quite honestly I don't think anybody cares.

"It would be easy to criticise the county council, but I think they are in a very difficult position."

Seamus Breen, head of community care with the council, said it had tried to help secure the home's future.

But the Alba Rose had had no patients referred to it since October last year and only 13 of the available 18 beds were filled.

Mr Breen said fewer elderly people were being referred to nursing homes as part of the Government's attempts to move away from relying heavily on such facilities.

He said: "The issue of the price of care is one for the whole of North Yorkshire, but we are recognising that smaller homes are having difficulty surviving.

"Larger homes are managing to ride out the storm, but the smaller ones cannot.