U-turn hint over plans to close three city council care homes

A U-TURN may be coming over council plans to close three care homes in Hull.

Families of relatives who face being evicted from their care homes have been campaigning against the proposals in Hull Council’s draft budget proposals.

The authority, which is facing £50m cuts, is trying to save £1.5m by shutting Alderson Resource Centre, Nicholson House and Salingar House, but relatives say their loved ones are happy where they are and should not be evicted.

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They have already started a leafleting campaign and will be taking their fight to the doorstep of council leader Carl Minns by targeting his Kingswood ward. Meanwhile online and paper petitions continue gathering signatures in the run up the crucial budget setting meeting on February 24.

However yesterday a Liberal Democrat source dropped hints that some of the homes might be saved and suggested financial and practical issues were not stacking up, adding: “Residents are making convincing arguments, causing senior councillors to think again.”

It took the authority two years to close council-run Rokeby House in Hull following a High Court battle.

The Liberal Democrats will be publishing their response to consultation next week.

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Coun Minns said: “We’ve taken on board people’s concerns. Residents have made some very persuasive arguments through the course of consultation, but clearly until the consultation has finished we can’t make any announcements.”

Meanwhile relatives said they would be doing everything in their power to stop the closures going ahead.

Jenny Sergeant said when they took her mother Dorothy, 93 to live at Nicholson House, a unit caring for people with dementia and Alzheimers, they didn’t think she’d live beyond her 90th birthday.

Mrs Sergeant, from Leven, said: “We’ve just given her her 93rd birthday and that couldn’t have happened without the love and care and attention while she’s been at Nicholson House. The city council have a fantastic team there who work above and beyond their duty – when my mum was in hospital they caught buses to go and see her, they didn’t have to do that.

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“Everyone understands the recession and the economic climate but to do this to vulnerable old people who just need to live out their lives to me is just absolutely wrong.”

Relatives are concerned that staff are being put in an impossible situation after being told the redundancy terms they are being offered are not guaranteed beyond April 30.

Margaret Allison’s mother Flo Dawson has been at Nicholson House for nearly seven years. Mrs Allison said: “She worked every day of her life. The thing that makes me mad is that people like them fought the war so we could live the way we are living today, but the attitude is more or less, let’s just throw them on the rubbish heap.

“None of the staff want to leave but they are saying if they don’t take redundancy they are going to get a lower rate.”

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The ward councillor for Southcoates West, Mary Glew, said: “Our policy has always been to retain these excellent services in-house.

“Hopefully the relatives will get a groundswell of support and that will make the Liberal Democrats do the U-turn they are so famously fond of.”

In their draft budget proposals the council says they don’t have the funding to bring the homes up to modern standards. Residents would be transferred to private care homes. The three remaining care homes in the city would be used for respite and day services.

The authority is also facing resistance over plans to close most council-run day services for the disabled and people with special needs.

The number of centres will drop from 10 to seven if proposals, aimed at saving £1.7m, are agreed at the same meeting.

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