CARE homes are continuing to close in Wiltshire at an alarming rate, causing the number of nursing home places for elderly people to drop to their lowest levels for years.

It is a serious problem for the county's social services, whose director, Annie Hudson, told the Journal this week that every effort was being made to solve it.

Mrs Hudson said talks were being held with all the agencies involved in the care of the elderly and she agreed with care home-owners who said that extra government funding was needed.

Mrs Hudson said there were increasing pressures and difficulties in placing old people in homes as quickly as they would like.

"People need different types of care, depending on their requirements, and we set our levels to what we can afford from the funding available to us," she said.

"There is a gap between what we can pay and what care home-owners want to charge us.

"I am reluctant to use the word crisis, but we recognise there are problems."

Among the care homes to close in Salisbury and the New Forest in the past 18 months are the Assissi Residential Home, Salisbury, Burghleigh House in the city's Tollgate Road, The Croft, in Harnham, and the Waterside Rest Home, in Fordingbridge.

Denis Barry, the proprietor of the Glenside Manor Healthcare Services, in South Newton, is also chairman of the Wiltshire branch of the Registered Nursing Homes Association.