THE owner of Graceland nursing home, in Guisborough, has agreed to withdraw his notice of closure following a rescue package put forward by Langbaurgh Primary Care Trust.

Barry Parvin said the PCT had promised a block booking contract for 40 nursing beds at the home, which would enable him to retain all the nursing staff.

The contract would also include extra payments for other nursing homes in the area.

Mr Parvin gave a presentation to Guisborough Town Council before its meeting on Thursday of last week.

He said the planned closure of the home in March would officially be rescinded as soon he received a contract from the PCT for the block booking.

Jon Chadwick, chief executive of Langbaurgh PCT, told the D&S Times: "The purpose of offering all private nursing home owners in our area bed-booking contracts was to help them budget their income.

"We are encouraged by their response and are now going through the process of drawing up the contracts which we hope to issue as soon as possible.

"As we are actively in negotiations with Mr Parvin at this moment, we do not wish to comment further at this time."

The verbal agreement had been reached at a meeting with the PCT and Redcar and Cleveland Council social services on Wednesday of last week, but Mr Parvin said the issue of funding for residential care still needed to be addressed.

He said: "Graceland will not close in March, but the west wing will stay closed because we can't afford to reopen it.

"Council-run homes get £150 a week more per resident than we do. If we got the same, we could pay our staff the same wage to retain them and have the whole of the home open. The demand is there but we can't meet it."

Derek Langley, one of the leaders of a residents' action group set up to fight the Graceland closure, told the town council that the campaign was not over and would, in fact, be stepped up.

He said a delegation would go to Downing Street to hand over a petition demanding more funding for all care homes in the country.

He said: "We should be lobbying central government and, if we do that collectively, our voice should be heard."

Coun Bill Clarke, the chairman of the town council, moved that the council give its full backing to the action group's campaign. This was agreed unanimously, as was the proposal to write to the local MP, Dr Ashok Kumar, and to the Health Secretary, Dr John Reid.

Dr Kumar issued a statement this week saying he was pleased to hear that the offer of improved funding had been put forward to homes in the area.

He added: "I intend to meet representatives of the private home owners in the near future to discuss longer-term issues."