A HEALTHCARE provider has withdrawn from negotiations to take over some of Devon County Council's residential homes, including Harewood House in Tavistock.

Shaw Healthcare has decided to focus its energies on other priorities, having concluded that the process of community engagement was more extensive than the company was able to commit.

The development plans to demolish Harewood House and replace it with a 56-bedded home with no guaranteed day car provision had rung alarm bells with carers and relatives.

They mounted a protest to put pressure on the council and healthcare company to ensure day care continued in the same capacity.

The county council said this week the decision would not affect its plans to develop its residential homes to meet the needs of the increasing numbers of old people in the county.

The council's executive member for adult and community services Cllr Hugo Barton said: 'We understand the reasons why Shaw Healthcare has made this decision.

'We would like to thank them for the amount of work and commitment they have put into Devon since they were appointed as preferred provider.'

He said the plans to develop some of the council's 26 residential homes would be done in partnership with other organisations and care providers who were keen to be involved in the exciting, but challenging, programme.

'As we have stressed, completing a contract with Shaw Healthcare was not a done deal and that no decisions about any service developments at our homes has been taken and this remains the case.

'We still face a growing pressure in delivering adult care services and as agreed by the all-party executive in 2004 we must find the right way of addressing this pressure.'

Gill Gorbutt, who is one of the campaigners to keep day care provision at Harewood, said this decision had given them some respite but they would be keeping their ear to the ground.

'We must be on the case of anyone else who comes forward. Day care must be a priority whether it is on this site or whether Devon County Council funds an alternative site in Tavistock itself.

'It would be very good to have upgraded and new facilities for the residents which is what Shaw had offered but we must have a guarantee that day care provision will run alongside. It is both stimulating and entertaining and an essential service for both carer and those being cared for.'

Mrs Gorbutt said her husband had used the day centre two days a week and had benefited greatly from it: 'I do not know what I would have done without it.'