Anger at day centre closure

2:29pm Wednesday 1st August 2007

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A DAY centre for people with learning disabilities in Blackburn is set to close - but council chiefs are adamant it is not a cost-cutting move.

They said that attendances at the Mowbray Day Centre, in Park Lee Road, have dropped because regular users are taking part in more activities within the community.

But a disabled campaigner said he was "very, very angry" at the move as many people relied on the centre to get out and meet people.

None of the 15 staff posts will be lost when the centre is shutdown in September, council chiefs said, and two other days centres, in Stansfield Street and Tower View, Darwen, will remain open.

Work will now focus on developing programmes which would see centre users supported in the community, perhaps taking trips out to community centres, Blackburn Museum, Witton Park or Waves.

The closure comes at a time when the adult social services budget is facing a £3.3million shortfall for 2006/07.

People receiving care packages from the department are already being reassessed and asked to pay more for their welfare in future.

Currently the borough council spends £1.8 million per year providing day services for 140 people with learning disabiltiies in Blackburn and Darwen.

Council officials have admitted that the existing day centres are old and not 'fit for purpose', and cannot easily be adapted for 21st century use.

Mowbray Day Centre was selected for closure because it was felt to be the least capable of being upgraded, of the three locations.

The centre closure is part of national moves to give people with learning disabilities more contact and interaction with all sectors of society, rather than being segregated in their own facilities.

Coun David Foster, executive member for adult social services, said: "We are launching a new way of providing help for people with learning disabilities.

"Restriction, segregation and helplessness are being replaced with greater choice, control and independence on the part of people with learning disabilities.

"Users of Mowbray are doing more and more in the community and spending less and less time at the centre.

"To give them those opportunities, we have been moving staff from the centre into the community to support them."

Once the building has been vacated this autumn, consideration will be given to selling off the premises and reinvesting the proceeds back into related social services activities.

But John Edwards, social secretary of Blackburn Disabled Persons Group, said: "It makes me very, very angry. Day care centres are a life line for some disabled people, they are the only opportunity to get out of their homes.

"They rely on the centres to get social interaction.

"I would like to take the council and lock them up for six months and see their reaction. They choose the least line of resistance - those people who don't complain much.

"It is very, very sad."