BRACKNELL TARGETS ELDERLY & DISABLED YET AGAIN

4.48.15pm GMT Tue 26th Jan 2010

Cuts in social services spell the end of day care centre provision

The 2010/11 budget report approved by the Executive of Bracknell Forest Council on 18 December 2009 contained proposals to close the 'Look-In' cafe in Bracknell town centre and Downside Resource Centre in Wildridings, Bracknell.

Users of Downside have already been transferred to the overcrowded Heathlands Elderly Persons Home nearby, while decisions are made about their future day care arrangements.

Users of the 'Look-In' meanwhile are petitioning against its planned closure and a public meeting was held at Easthampstead Baptist Church on 22 January attended by over 100 people.

The estimated cost of making these cuts is £135,000 against an adult social care and health budget of more than £26million.

Commenting on the proposed closures, Ray Earwicker, Lib Dem Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Bracknell, said 'he caught the tail end of the meeting at Easthampstead Baptist Church and it was quite clear there was overwhelming opposition to the plans.The council was simply taking advantage of the Government's ridiculous ideas for 'modernising' day care services in order to reduce its costs.

Following the closure of Johnstone Court in 2005, the Council would now no longer have direct responsibility for providing any day care services for the elderly at all, if these plans went ahead. The case for such facilities was undeniable, as the voluntary run day centres in Wokingham, Sandhurst and Crowthorne could testify.

Day centre users in Bracknell had been pushed from pillar to post in recent years and now they were being moved on yet again. The net cost of the 'Look In' could easily be reduced or met in other ways and it should not be beyond the wit of the Council and its various partners to come up with a satisfactory solution for Downside. It was the political will that was lacking.'