Just like its government, a local Labour council is now CUTTING disabled people’s services

Almost as soon as in office the Labour Party government picked on poor children with their refusal to reverse the two-child benefit cap, then they selected pensioners for a winter fuel allowance cut. Now, to their shame, Waltham Forest Labour council is picking on disabled people at the Markhouse Centre.

Waltham Forest Labour: cutting disabled people’s services

As the Waltham Forest Echo reported, the Labour council is closing a day centre for learning disabled adults:

Waltham Forest Council is looking to close the Markhouse Centre and move to a system that prioritises “individual needs,” after it was found that it would cost almost £1.3million to restore the building…

Councillor Louise Mitchell, the cabinet member for adult social care, said the authority was looking at shifting from a “building-based” approach to a “people-based” approach.

If Markhouse was to close, then attendees would instead go to day centres nearer to where they live and where the council says they would be catered for.

This centre has for many years provided activities for disabled people. On average, 28 people attend each day.

The council say the cost of refurbishing the centre would be too costly, so 53 users are potentially subject to having this precious service taken away and being offered another form of “care in the community”, which may well result in simply making their hard-working carers shoulder the burden completely.

Save the Markhouse Centre

Kevin Parslow, secretary of Waltham Forest Trade Union council (WFTC), said:

The trade unions are part of this campaign to save the Centre. Already meetings have been held to resist closure. The response to the consultation has resulted in the council delaying their decision from November to December.

But we are not stepping back.

We have planned a Lobby of the Scrutiny Committee at the town hall at 6pm on Wednesday October 9th. We will put our objections as forcefully as we can to councillors.

This will be followed up by a local meeting on 24th October at the Wiliam Morris Centre. Greenleaf Road, E17 for all Markhouse carers, users and supporters, and extended to all parents of Special Educational Needs and Disabled (SEND) children who are fighting for specialist provision for their children in Waltham Forest schools; and of course, we will be making a special call for all to come to that crucial 3 December council cabinet meeting.

Nancy Taaffe (deputy secretary WFTC) added:

We sincerely hope our words and arguments will be effective; but people are so desperate that, if that fails, then more direct action may well have to become an option. We know the source of the financial problems comes from 14 years of Tory austerity, but we also know the money does exist in the tops of society.

It’s the billionaires that have the broadest shoulders. If the Waltham Forest councillors were to launch a serious mass campaign to get more funding from the Labour government to match the needs of local people, then we would wholeheartedly support that line of resistance.

Featured image supplied