COUNCIL chiefs have explained why they failed to tell old people their home was going to close, despite knowing for a month.

Pensioners living at Brooklands home, Blackburn, were horrified to be given four weeks' notice to quit last month.

But in a letter seen by the Lancashire Evening Telegraph, Blackburn with Darwen social services director Ken Foote said: "By the beginning of October, the Registration and Inspection unit had become aware that the home was to be closed and sold to Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School."

The letter to Home Secretary Jack Straw's office also said the department was told by the then owner Abdul Khaliq Choudry of plans to sell the home in February.

The letter said the plans were shelved in April, but after Mr Choudry died in May his widow told the department she was again thinking of selling the home.

Commenting on the decision not to tell residents or their families, Sue Reid, executive member of Social Services, said the unit could not advise residents until the owners confirmed they definitely intended to sell. She said: "The unit monitors daily the activities of over a hundred residential homes in the borough.

"It is inevitable that information will arise regarding a home's future, which may or may not be true.

"In such circumstances, the department does everything in its limited powers to clarify with the proprietors their intentions.

"Ultimately, we are in the hands of the owners who may, for commercial reasons, keep their real intentions to themselves.

"This happened in the case of Brooklands, leading to the distressing move for the elderly residents."

Former resident Leslie Williams, 90, now living at Springbank Nursing Home, said he was disgusted by the revelations.

He said: "The whole system is a mess. Everyone seems to do as they like and just tell us afterwards. No-one seems to carry the responsiblity for things like this."

Vicky Shepherd, information services manager of Age Concern Blackburn with Darwen, said: "If the Social Services were aware that Brooklands was definitely going to be closed a month prior to the residents being informed, we would have expected them to have passed this information on to the residents and their families to provide as much notice and as much information as possible.

"The closure of a residential home is a very distressing experience for those who live there at any time but extra forewarning could have reduced this distress felt by these older people."

Haroon Choudhry, Abdul Choudhry's son and a partner in the family business, said he did not wish to comment.

Picture: Former resident Leslie Williams, 90, who is now living at Springbank Nursing Home