11th hour appeal to save care homes from closing (From The Northern Echo)

11th hour appeal to save care homes from closing

11:01am Wednesday 28th July 2010 in

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FAMILIES fighting to save seven residential homes have issued an 11th-hour plea for opposition councillors to try to block the closure.

Last week, cash-strapped Durham County Council’s Labour-controlled cabinet agreed to close the homes, which accommodate more than 100 elderly people, provoking fury from the residents, their relatives and care staff.

The cuts are expected to be rubber-stamped at a full council meeting at County Hall, Durham, this morning.

However, campaigners have called on opposition councillors to interrupt the meeting, to force it to be adjourned or postponed.

"I will not rest until they forcibly remove my 93-year-old blind and disabled mother from the place she calls home"

David Dutch

David Dutch, whose 93- year-old mother, Margaret, lives in Shafto House, Newton Aycliffe, one of the homes under threat, said: “I will not rest until they forcibly remove my 93-year-old blind and disabled mother from the place she calls home.

“She is so frail now I shudder to think what will happen if she is moved.

“Yes we live in austere times, yes there is a need to make savings, but closures and redundancies will contribute nothing to the budget, so why do it?”

The other homes closing are Manor House, in Annfield Plain; Glendale House, in Blackhall; Lynwood House, in Lanchester; Hackworth House, in Shildon; Stanfield House, in Stanley; and East Green, in West Auckland.

The county council faces having to find £100m worth of savings over the next four years and council leader Simon Henig says a £35m bill to save the homes is disproportionate and unaffordable without decimating other services.

The 126-seat council’s ruling Labour group, which has 67 members, backed the closures by 33 votes to ten, in a behind-closed-doors meeting earlier this month.

Then the authority’s tenmember Labour cabinet, the final decision-making group on the issue, also backed the closures unanimously, last Wednesday.

Opposition groups are understood to be considering how best to fight the cuts.

Families and care home staff will also be protesting outside County Hall before today’s meeting, which starts at 10am.

No dates for the closures have been announced.

Council chiefs say the needs, comfort and safety of residents will be their prime concern and great care will be taken to minimise and manage any disruption.