Hotel bid revealed for vacant Castle Gardens Care Home site in Invergordon as plans lodged with Highland Council
A FORMER Easter Ross care home which closed earlier this year after struggling to find staff could be repurposed into a 25-bedroom hotel, it has emerged.
Castle Gardens Care Home in Invergordon is the subject of a planning application now being considered by Highland Council.
It closed back in June after its operator HC-One cited difficulty in building and retaining "the full, permanent care team needed to consistently deliver our high standards of care that our residents rightly deserve".
The managed closure over a period of three months allowed time to find new homes for all of the existing residents but still came as a major shock locally.
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The application comes from Invergordon-based Calder Property Management Ltd whose address is given as The Craig, Cromlet Drive.
The site area is given as 12,500 sq.m.
In a supporting statement for the proposal for a change of use from care home to a 25-room hotel at Castle Gardens Care Home in Invergordon, the applicant's agent states: "The existing building was formally a residential nursing home that closed June 2023. Our client does not consider the current use to be viable and is aware that when the building was a nursing home there were issues with finding suitably qualified, local staff.
"There were also increasingly onerous demands from the Care Commission. Our client purchased the property with the intention of redeveloping the building to service a recognised local demand for tourists and worker accommodation. They believe that a hotel in this location will boost the local economy and be a sustainable business going forward."
It has been speculated that the freeport that takes in Invergordon and Nigg as well as Ardersier and Inverness, could generate thousands of new jobs and create demand for a wide variety of accommodation types.
The style of the existing two-storey building "lends itself to being reconfigured into hotel accommodation" although the plan is to combine two bedrooms to form one with a generous shower room and where possible a separate lounge with tea kitchen.
No external changes are proposed as part of this application and the applicant states: "We do not believe that the proposed Change of Use will result in any increase of traffic visiting the property compared with its previous nursing home use, given the high staff numbers that were required for the nursing home and regular visitors to residents."
It concludes: "The change of use will create an appropriate business and its conversion will bring into use a building that will otherwise remain empty. There is a recognised demand for accommodation, both for tourism and work men and this building can be converted to this new use with minimal intervention."
