I READ with interest Diana Rice’s letter “Care for the elderly is a bone of contention” (“Courier”, August 25).

I agree wholeheartedly with her condemnation of the removal of the beds at Crediton Hospital and the closure of the St Lawrence residential care home.

I am also aware that “Care in the Community” is not the great panacea successive governments have tried to persuade us it is.

Sitting alone in one’s home with only the TV for company, with just one or two brief 10 or 15 minute visits by an agency care worker, is not how I want to end my days.

There is, however, an alternative and it’s called CoHousing.

A Cohousing community is an intentional community, created by and run by its residents.

Each household has a self-contained, private home, as well as shared communal space. Residents come together to manage their community, share activities, and regularly eat together.

I see it as a way of resolving the isolation many people experience today, recreating a neighbourly, mutually supportive environment.

Projects can be a new build, self- build, or maybe re-development of an existing large property (possibly reclamation of a former residential care home?).

To find out more visit: www.cohousing .org.uk .

If you would like to find out more about cohousing locally, or have an interest in helping establish a group in the Crediton area, please leave your contact details at the “Crediton Courier” office or email me at: [email protected] .

Paula Kovacs

Sandford