A PLEA has been made for Scottish Borders Council to ‘crack on’ with an £8m ‘Dutch-style’ state-of-the-art residential care village in Hawick.

On Thursday (September 29), the full council received an outline business case for the proposed development, with the probable site being Stirches.

Plans for a care village in both Hawick and a similar £14m development at Tweedbank form part of a radical review of elderly care in the Borders.

The re-think was inspired after a visit by council officers and elected members to a ‘dementia village’ in the Netherlands back in 2020.

The aim is a movement away from institutionalised care and the creation of a village-like environment which would be a “neighbourhood that is part of a broader society”, incorporating a shop, café and other community facilities.

For the Hawick care village to go-ahead the town’s existing Deanfield Care Home would probably need to close, as it is deemed ‘not fit for purpose’.

However, one of the options still on the table is the refurbishment of Deanfield, although such a move is deemed “challenging” in the outline business case.

At last week’s meeting, Hawick and Denholm councillor Stuart Marshall called on officers to push ahead urgently with the new complex “which has been a long time coming”.

And he emphasised to members that Deanfield was outdated – while also praising the skills and efforts of the staff who work there.

He said: “Some time ago this council sent members overseas to the Netherlands to see first hand what a care village looks like and how it operates. We have also been informed in this very chamber that our current care facilities at Deanfield are not fit for purpose and that it would be demolished and a new state-of-the-art care village was what was promised.

“People returned from that trip brimming with enthusiasm and it was one of the reasons I supported the budget proposal put forward by the previous administration, a budget which contained in it detailed plans to earmark £22m for such care facilities at both Tweedbank and Hawick.

“A care village was designed to move away from institutionalised care and at the same time create a neighbourhood which would be part of a much broader society, providing specialist dementia care in a homely setting.

“Of course I respect this council’s need to exercise due diligence in exploring all options but the fact is we must get this right. It must be right for this council and it must be right for the most vulnerable of our community, who deserve nothing less.

“I’d like to remind members that we were told in this chamber that Deanfield was not fit for purpose and that it was creaking very badly, we were also told we were throwing shed loads of public money into it, just to keep papering over the cracks. This must be taken into consideration.

“Those I represent want to see plans for this care village come to fruition soon, they don’t want to hear of further delays. They don’t want to see this council provide something so removed from the original proposals put forward by the previous administration.

“Let’s crack on and deliver the much-trumpeted, much-promised care village for Hawick, which the town deserves.”