YOUR report ( Courant , May 13) about the closure of King’s Cottage care home, at Lowgate, addresses a major problem. But it is completely wrong in suggesting that this is caused by the new national living wage.

For a start, 48 per cent of care homes do not even pay the old minimum wage. Secondly, care homes have been folding long before higher wages were introduced.

This is the result of the withdrawal of local authorities from residential care and takeovers by large profit-making companies which often try to load their debts onto newly-acquired businesses, thereby forcing them into bankruptcy.

MARTIN PUGH,

Slaley