Join march to stop closures

We want readers to take part in the event next Saturday to show county hall bosses the anger over plans to close the care homes.

The march will take place in Burnley town centre and is being backed by our MPs and politicians.

Kevin Young, editor of the Lancashire Evening Telegraph, said: "This march is a great opportunity for the people of Lancashire to demonstrate their opposition to the ill-conceived plans to shut down these homes.

"It's a unique chance to show solidarity with hundreds of senior citizens who have given so much to this county and who now face a dreadful uncertainty over their futures. Let's hope it sends a clear message to the county council that what they are doing is quite simply wrong."

A Lancashire Evening Telegraph campaign to stop the closure of 35 of the council's 48 care homes -- 19 of which are in East Lancashire -- has already got the backing of 2,000 of our readers.

Next Saturday's march is being organised by ourselves and Burnley mayor-elect Gordon Birtwistle.

It starts at the Bank Hall car park, off Queen Victoria Road, at 10.30am.

From there walkers will head down Belvedere Road, turn right into Yorkshire Street before eventually arriving at the town centre bandstand.

It is expected to take 30 minutes.

Lancashire County Council leader and Rossendale county councillor Hazel Harding or Coun Chris Cheetham, head of social services, are expected to be at the bandstand to receive a petition signed by protesters.

The council is in the middle of a four-month consultation on whether to shut the care homes to save spending £14.5million on repairing them and bringing them up to new national standards.

The operating costs saved will be ploughed in to domiciliary services and other home care.

Some of the residents living in homes in Burnley have already been moved once, when Lancashire County Council closed a home in the town in 1998.

Coun Birtwistle said: "We are just putting the final preparations in place. We hope it will be as big as the protests in Preston when they closed the last lot of homes in 1998. There was a massive turnout to that.

"People in the homes will be joining us if possible. We are hoping to get wheelchairs and sticks so people can join us but we need friends, relatives and supporters to come along as well.

"We have to halt these closures."

He has also set up an anti-home closure group of relatives who have people living in the affected homes that meets regularly to plan action to try to ensure the proposal does not become a reality.

Coun Chris Cheetham, in charge of social services at the county council, said: "We have received petitions in the past but they have been handed to us at public meetings.

"I shall be talking to Coun Harding to see if someone will attend."

And care home campaigners are to set to demonstrate on the streets of Barnoldswick today in a bid to halt the plans.

Organisers were hoping hundreds of people would descend on the town square.

The event has been organised by the Save Cravenside Campaign. Paul Burstow, the Lib Dem spokesman for social services, visited Pendle to meet some of the residents concerned about the closures.

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