A COUNCIL has been forced to advertise in The Northern Echo to try to ease an accommodation crisis among the elderly.

Darlington Borough Council has appealed in an advert in the paper for private developers to come forward and provide accommodation for elderly people in the town.

The council is considering forming partnerships to provide care, as well as letting private companies open and run their own homes.

It has suffered a shortage of beds for the elderly since councillors agreed to close its five remaining residential homes during a meeting in September last year.

Following a later announcement that the private Trees Park and Abbey Lodge homes were to close, the council decided to delay the closure of two of its homes - but this failed to stem the shortage in care beds.

The shortfall means some elderly patients have been unable to be discharged from hospital as there is nowhere for them to go, even though they are not in need of medical care

But the council claims there has already been a surge of interest from private companies in entering the care home sector.

A spokesman for the council said: "Even before we placed the advert in the paper we received considerable interest from a variety of organisations in the private sector.

"By advertising, we are finding out all the options available to us. The situation is certainly not critical, and, moreover, it gives us an understanding of how much interest there actually is out there."

Conservative councillor Eric Roberts, who had condemned the closure of the council's care home, called for better treatment of the borough's elderly.

He said: "I do agree the council should do everything it can to help the plight of our old people.

"There's no doubt there is a shortage of spaces which can be put down to the private home closures.

"I am only sorry we embarked on a programme of closing our own homes, but that is in the past. Now we must help our elderly people."