As the former chair of Social Work & Housing at Aberdeenshire council I was proud to be at the official opening of the new £10m Care Home in Inverurie this week. Under the previous administration we made a commitment to provide new care homes and after Edenholme in Stonehaven we now have a superb care village in Inverurie to follow suit. In the latest  care home which replaces Blythewood in Port Elphinstone, there are 60 bedrooms all ensuite, eight one- bed cottages and an NHS 12 bedded specialist dementia unit. It is a great example of health and social care integration in action  and we need to see much more investment in this approach.

The Lord Lieutenant James Ingleby and the Provost Cllr Hamish Vernal cut the ribbon and buried a time capsule in the grounds helped by pupils from nearby Kellands Primary School.

It was a lovely event in a very homely atmosphere and not like the care homes that in the past I have visited to see relatives and indeed I worked in one at Kirklandside in Kilmarnock many years ago.

I spoke to the Press and Journal reporter Blair Dingwall and he asked what I thought of the new home. I remarked that this was a fantastic modern care home, not a scary or isolated place as many were in the past when there was little social interaction for the elderly residents and no integration at all with the community.

The young school pupils made the place come alive and older residents rubbed shoulders with the children and it all looked perfectly normal. This kind of intergenerational contact is great and it helps to lift everyone’s spirits. Well done Aberdeenshire council and well done Liberal Democrat councillors who were in the last two administrations who had the vision to make this happen.  Peterhead can also look forward to a new care home as the programme rolls on.