Connaught Care Home board ‘not responsible for £1m. overspend’
The chairman of the Alderney Care Home Charity has denied that neither the charity nor the former board of the Connaught Care Home Ltd were responsible for £1m. overspend on extension works to the building.
At the December States meeting Alderney States agreed an additional £340,000 to be spent to complete the works.
This followed a vote for an additional £737,000 in August 2021.
The initial project, approved in March 2020 just before the Covid pandemic, was budgeted at £1.29m.
‘The old board had nothing to do with the planning or supervision of these works,’ said chairman James Dent, pictured, a former chairman of the island’s Policy & Finance Committee.
‘The States of Alderney seem to have been slightly disingenuous in suggesting anyone else was involved and I don’t want any misunderstanding that this was the charity.’
Five of the six board members of the Connaught Care home were removed or resigned at the end of January last year, but as the States was unable to transfer the charitable status to a new board, the members remained as charity officials.
Three of those removed – James Dent, Nigel Roberts and Jo Jordan – along with fellow director Barbara Benfield, who resigned shortly afterwards, wrote open letters criticising the way the removals were handled, the States of Alderney, and the former Policy & Finance chairman Nigel Vooght, who recently quit the States.
The Connaught Care Home has 27 bedrooms with 24-hour care, alongside 14 self-contained studio apartments, which can be used for both long-term and respite care. The extension is adding another much-needed 13 new residential rooms and ancillary rooms. At the meeting of Alderney States, members were informed that the extension should be finally ready to be occupied in the new year.
Member Boyd Kelly has called for a public inquiry into the management of the extension project, and Mr Dent said he would ‘100% support’ such an inquiry.
‘We were told in June 2023 it would be completed in July that year,’ he said.
‘I don’t think public money has been wasted as the extension is vitally needed, but you have to ask if the money has been as wisely spent as it could have been. Are there penalty clauses with in the contract with the constructors? We have no knowledge of this, as we have never been party or privy to the contract that was signed.’
