Alston Moor Parish Council
Alston Moor Parish Council has agreed its formal response to Westmorland and Furness Council’s consultation on the future of Grisedale Croft Care Home. The response was adopted by the full council at its meeting on 3 August 2026, and is being submitted to the Council on Thursday 13 August 2026, before the consultation closes on 19 August 2026.
Why the Council could not choose one of the five options
The consultation asks people to choose between five options for Grisedale Croft. After weighing the evidence, the Parish Council concluded that it could not, in honesty, select any of them. This is a considered response, not an abstention, and the Council has set out its reasons in full.
The option the Council has said it prefers rests on an alternative building that, on the Council’s own disclosures, is no longer available, and no replacement has been identified or costed. The refurbishment and rebuild options changed meaning during the consultation, once it emerged that they would mean 12 to 24 months’ closure and the displacement of residents. Information the Parish Council needs in order to respond properly has been refused, only partly answered, or is not due until after the consultation has closed. And the one course the community actually asked for — to keep Grisedale Croft and make the role it was promised work — is not among the options at all.
The response asks Westmorland and Furness Council not to close Grisedale Croft, but to work with the NHS to restore the community nursing, therapy and step-down support the home was promised in 2017–18. If closure is not ruled out now, it asks that no decision be taken until four safeguards are in place: a current Care Quality Commission inspection under the Council’s ownership; a lawful, published equality and rural-proofing assessment; a properly costed, building-specific appraisal of refurbishment; and a written statement, with the NHS, of whether the Council considers itself bound by the 2017–18 commitments.