Skip to content

Children’s Respite Care Centre Closes

July 22, 2011
by

A Berkshire respite care unit for children is to close 10 months after opening, despite parents’ protests.

The unit at Manor Green special school closes on Friday and the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead has said it does not know when it will reopen.

The centre provides overnight care for children with severe learning disabilities.

The local authority said the decision was due to reductions in central government respite care funding.

‘Very upset’

Carol Streeter, whose daughter Rebecca uses the unit, said attending the 24-bed respite centre had taught her daughter essential life skills.

She said: “I am very upset, because there are some people I know that are up over a dozen times a night every night, seven nights a week, so having that night in which you can sleep brings some normality to life.”

Windsor and Maidenhead Council said that neighbouring authority Buckinghamshire County Council had decided to stop sending children for respite care at the Maidenhead centre and there was not sufficient demand to keep the unit open.

However, Buckinghamshire Council Council said it was no longer using the service because the school raised the price from £40 per night to £350 per night in January.

Director of children’s’ services, Cliff Turner, said: “We put our prices up because we didn’t think it was right to subsidise what we were offering to our neighbours with our own council tax payers’ money, because government grants to local authorities have been squeezed and because we have more freedom about how we spend those grants.”

The centre opened as part of a £26m specialist school which replaced Holyport Manor last September.

Mr Turner said the council would close the centre and review its future purpose.

In a statement, the council said: “Everyone concerned wants to make sure that the excellent facilities are used to best effect and that the provision reopens as soon as possible.”

from → council craziness
One Comment leave one →
  1. *Stargazer's avatar
    *Stargazer permalink
    July 25, 2011 10:50 pm

    I left a comment earlier about how I feel the establishment lets society down, in relation to the car which crashed into the family home of a young disabled boy’s recently.
    Seriously injuring him, injuring his siblings and severely traumatising the family as a whole.
    Adequate crash barriers installed by a responsible council would not have prevented the crash – but the damage it would have prevented will now not be known.
    Never mind the damage to their house, and the lad’s bedroom has been decimated – that lad’s sanctuary, his hub, his haven is destroyed. How long will it take them to sort that out I wonder? Are they going to have to rely on charity for the reconstruction – were they impoverished and unable to afford insurance? All these questions…………..

    How’s this for a question – WHEN WILL THEY STOP THIS “lets raise the price then claim under-subscription as justification for closure”?
    How’s about this for another couple of questions – when are they going to embrace our differences and support us, have our lives enriched by a little heart from them on high?
    Why don’t the hundred grand a years take a ten grand pay cut for two years and get the bus to work instead of doing 5 miles an hour two hours a day in their gas-guzzlers – keep these valuable and much-needed-at-an-affordable-price respite places open?

    I AM SO MAD ABOUT THIS I COULD SPIT, GOD HELP ME, HELP US ALL!
    I am too poorly, too sick in the heart with madness and my arms won’t stop vibrating, all I have to say before I sign off is; how would those inept greedy affluent eunuchs at the upper echelons like to live life down here for half a day – eh?

    Like

    Reply

What are you thinking?