A TWEEDDALE councillor says she is concerned over plans for a 'care village' in the Borders.

Councillors approved the progression of a 60-resident development in Tweedbank at a full meeting on Thursday, November 25.

The vision for the village is to allow people to live in “small, homely settings” and as part of the community, rather than as a separate institution.

However, Tweeddale West councillor Heather Anderson, of the SNP, said the local authority has to be “very conscious” of the history of institutionalisation in Scotland.

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“My concern is not about the standard of care or quality of care,” said Ms Anderson. “The setting is concerning me. Putting people in rural settings behind closed doors puts them at risk and we’re still dealing with the impacts of institutionalised abuse in Scotland.

“I just think we have to think a bit harder here. Instead of creating a pretend village where we care for people in residential settings we should be caring for people in their own villages.

“We’re not short of villages in the Borders.”

Ms Anderson told the meeting how she worked on the programme to close many long-stay institutions in the country, which she says “all started as villages”.

The Tweeddale West representative added: “Vulnerable individuals absolutely need to be as close as possible to the people that love and care for them.

“It’s better to be in a community where they remember who you were even if you aren’t who you used to be at this point.”

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SBC chief executive Netta Meadows said that she understood some of Ms Anderson’s concerns, but said that institutionalisation is “absolutely nothing like what we’re proposing here”.

“While the ambitions of this council is always to keep people in their own homes the reality is somewhat different in that people will develop care needs that will require them to go into a care setting that is very different to their home,” said Ms Meadows.

“What we’re trying to do with this care village is make it as familiar and similar to that home setting but recognising that it’s just not possible to deliver some people’s care needs in a home setting.

“We are trying to move to that model that finds the balance between the two.”

Chris Myers, chief officer of the Borders health and social care partnership, said that officers are currently working on a design brief for the village.

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He said that the “most appropriate setting” would be designed to deal with the growth in demand for dementia facilities.

On the progress of the Tweedbank care village, Conservative Kelso councillor Tom Weatherston, SBC’s executive member for adult wellbeing, said: “If this was a journey to Edinburgh on the train, we’re probably somewhere between Gala and Stow.”

Elected members backed plans to close Waverley Care Home and Garden View Intermediate Care Home to secure revenue funding for the project.