ANOTHER nursing home in York is to close and the owners blame the cost of imposing expensive new government regulations.

St Olave's Nursing Home at Clifton, York, is to close at the end of April.

The 24-bed home currently has 16 residents - some have started to move out in advance of the closure - and employs 28 staff, who were told the news yesterday.

Owners Ian and Sue Barnard said the Government was not giving enough money to homes to meet the cost of the new standards which will be introduced in April.

In November the couple applied for planning permission to demolish the home and build flats to give themselves a fall-back position if the home had to close.

Mr Barnard said the home was already suffering from financial problems, with the rising cost of running homes. Care homes were now facing the introduction of a "bureaucratic nightmare", he said.

"Over 240 individual standards are being imposed, covering everything from the width of internal doors, to safes in each room to keep the residents medicine and valuables in, to the number of electrical sockets each resident should have access to."

He said the regulation that was forcing them to close was that nursing homes could only have a ratio of 80:20 shared rooms.

"Unfortunately the structure of our home means that we cannot alter the building to meet that regulation without becoming financially unviable."

Updated: 11:41 Thursday, March 21, 2002