A HOME near Wareham providing specialist care for adults with learning difficulties will close next month, leaving 23 residents in need of relocation.

Privately owned Purbeck Care, a large Elizabethan manor house at East Stoke, has provided residential care for adults, many with autism, for decades.

For the past few weeks a restructuring and insolvency team at Moore Stephens International Limited has been working to find a buyer for the home – but to no avail.

Duncan Swift, of Moore Stephens, said: “Despite the best efforts of everyone involved and an intensive marketing process, it has not been possible to secure a purchaser for Purbeck Care. We would like to thank the staff at the home for working so hard during what has been a very difficult period for them.”

Mr Swift told the Daily Echo that 23 residents, aged from their early 20s to late 60s, will be affected by the closure.

At least a dozen of these residents are from within Dorset.

He added: “We have endeavoured to announce the home’s closure as far in advance as possible, in order to give residents, their families and the commissioning authorities as much time as possible to consult on the process of re-homing. We will do all that we can to ensure that process progresses with the minimum of disruption.”

Moore Stephens says the “significant” trading losses of the business and the low occupancy rate of the home – 55 per cent – deterred purchasers from acquiring it.

The company insists all residents of Purbeck Care will be re-homed prior to its closure on September 8.