Former Perth care home will be bulldozed to make way for older people’s housing

Perth’s last publicly owned care home is set to be demolished to make way for affordable housing for older people.

The Beechgrove House plans were rubberstamped by Perth and Kinross Council.

It comes five years after the home closed, despite a local campaign to save it.

The £6.5 million project will create 40 new properties at the site on Hillend Road, Perth.

The plans were approved by Perth and Kinross Council’s housing and social wellbeing committee.

Liberal Democrat councillor Peter Barrett questioned the reasoning behind making the affordable housing purely for older people.

He said Beechgrove House was an excellent location for families, since it is close to Perth primary and secondary schools.

But senior housing service manager Elaine Ritchie said the intention was that older people living in larger homes could move to the smaller new-builds and free up family accommodation.

She told councillors: “We have a lot of older people under-occupying in our own stock and therefore it would free up the capacity of larger accommodation.”

Beechgrove House has served Perth public well

Council bosses have have explored a number of potential uses for Beechgrove House.

The last residents were moved out in August 2019 in a bid to save almost £500,000.

More than 2,500 people signed a petition to try to save the home from the axe before the move was voted through by the local integration joint board.

Health and social care teams used the building for a time.

At the height of the Covid pandemic it became a centre for people recovering after hospital treatment, freeing up bed spaces for patients who were more seriously ill.

More recently Beechgrove House served as a Perth base for NHS Tayside’s community care and treatment service.

Other suggested uses have included sheltered and specialist housing, intermediate care, rehabilitation and short-term and residential respite services.

The committee unanimously agreed to proceed with an option for the site to be developed as a mixed tenure affordable housing development of 40 homes for older people.