Consultation closes on disability centre cuts in Bucks as families fear 'massive loss'
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Residents can no longer share their views on the council’s proposed budget cuts to its ‘short breaks’ service.
The service provides activities and support for adults with additional needs and disabilities at seven council-run and owned centres.
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Hide AdHowever, three of these centres – Hillcrest in High Wycombe, Burnham and Seeleys House in Beaconsfield, which also offers overnight respite – could now be closed and sold off if the council goes ahead with its plans.


This would generate £2.14 and £6.77 million, according to the council and save it £740,000 a year, while a fourth site, Buckingham Day Centre, could be repurposed for specialist education.
The council insists no final decision on the centres has been made, but argues demand for them has dropped, that they are underused, that some require ‘significant investment’ and that its service is not providing ‘value for money’.
However, the families and parents of the adults who use the centres dispute these points and warn that the centres and the skilled staff who operate them will not be replaced once they are gone.
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Hide AdIsobel Hallsmith’s son Neil Blackman, 58, has attended Burnham’s ‘short breaks’ centre for just shy of 40 years to socialise with his friends, take part in a range of activities and benefit from the wellbeing and health oversight there as someone who lives in his own flat.


But if the centre closes, people like Neil, who has Down’s syndrome and mobility issues, would be left with no local day opportunities and could be forced to travel across the county for respite.
The council says it will retain its other centres in Aylesbury, Chesham and Spring Valley in High Wycombe and pledges to improve these sites.
But for the users of the threatened centres, travelling long distances to other sites is often not possible and many of them, due to their complex needs, rely on maintaining routines built around one location, which in some cases have taken years to build up.
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Hide Ad“It will be a massive loss to the community,” said Isobel of the council’s plans to close the Burnham day centre and stop running its ‘short breaks’ service from the site.
She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “It could serve so many other community groups and needs. It would make a wonderful community hub.”
The retired social worker, 85, says the centres provide a lifeline for the families who use them as in many cases, they offer elderly parents a break from caring for their adult children.
She also warned of the ‘short-termism’ of selling off capital resources, which have a ‘wide potential use’ such as the Burnham unit, as well as the loss of staff.
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Hide Ad“Burnham day centre has very skilled and experienced staff in the needs and rights of disabled people,” she added.
“Once experienced and skilled people are lost, they are lost forever. The staff group of the centre is an asset. It should be as protected as the building.”
The mother also urged members of the public to write to the council before the consultation on its plans closes.
She said: “I would like everyone to understand that this is a resource that is going to be lost. No one knows when they are going to need support for a disability or wider needs. Once it is gone, it will be gone forever.”
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Hide AdThe families of users of the centres have also warned that the council’s plans ‘impact our most vulnerable clients disproportionately in South Bucks’.
In a joint consultation response to the plans, they also say that demand for the centres is actually projected to rise and that Seeleys House and Burnham especially are already well-equipped facilities, which do not need as much money spending on them as the council is claiming.
Labour Cllr Robin Stuchbury, a vocal critic of the plans, also argues that the council could be saving money in other areas, rather than making cuts in adult social care.
He told the LDRS: “If they had accepted our amendment last year on empty properties for £1.5 million, perhaps they wouldn’t be discussing closing these centres today. Perhaps that was the wrong decision.”
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Hide AdAngela Macpherson, the council’s deputy leader and cabinet member for health and wellbeing, said the authority was ‘committed to ensuring that every adult who is supported by adult social care continues to receive the high-quality support that they need’.
She told the LDRS: “While council-run services are highly valued, the challenges cannot be ignored. In recent years, the number of people accessing our services has fallen and buildings are underused. Some buildings also require significant investment, and the service is not providing value for money.”
She explained the council’s ‘preferred option’ was to operate a smaller number of council-run day centres ‘offering specialist provision and combining this with increasing the delivery of day and overnight respite services provided by external organisations’.
She said: “The key benefits of this approach are that it would enable more people to be supported at the remaining council sites with investment in the buildings, more external organisations supporting people, and more cost-effective services.”
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