Twenty years ago, Hove was in danger of being overrun by care homes for the elderly, especially in the Pembroke area. The council even approved a planning policy restricting them.

Now there is an alarming decline in their numbers and the latest to be closing is in Pembroke Crescent.

The White Lodge will be converted back into housing and the elderly residents of the home will have to move.

It's all a question of economics. In the Eighties and early Nineties, there was plenty of money to be made in the care home business.

Now, thanks to low payments by councils and over-regulation by Government, it is much more profitable to use the buildings for private housing.

What is sad is that elderly people are having to move from a well-run establishment they regarded as home and be dispersed to other homes.

Cheryl and Steve Bennett, who have run White Lodge for 21 years, did not want to close the home but felt with current levels of funding they had no option.

This is by no means the first care home to close in Hove and it will not be the last. Unless action is taken to make running homes more attractive, there will soon be nowhere for many elderly people to go.

The Government must take action to help make running rest homes a paying proposition once again. Unless it does so, there will be more misery for elderly people and the costs of looking after many of them in hospital will be greater.