Closure of Great Croft and Hillwood resource centres - We will go home to die if they shut, elderly warn
Published: 16 December 2010
by JOSIE HINTON
ELDERLY people in the south of the borough could be forced to move into sheltered housing or residential care following the closure of two popular pensioners’ clubs.
Age Concern Camden, which runs services for elderly people in King’s Cross and Somers Town, has warned that vulnerable people will be left “isolated” and “reliant on statutory care” when its centres are axed.
The charity was told by Camden Council earlier this month that funding for Great Croft Resource Centre, in Cromer Street, and Hillwood Resource Centre, in Polygon Road, will be withdrawn in March.
Currently, more than 250 people attend the centres every week for hot meals and activities such as exercise, English language classes and gardening. The cuts will lead to council savings of about £550,000.
John Northeast, who chairs the members’ committee at Great Croft, said: “The centre is the lifeline for the frail and vulnerable and often hidden members in our communities. Without it, there will be an increased need for meals-on-wheels and home helps. Some people will have to go into residential care.”
Founded 20 years ago, Great Croft provides meals to 166 members each week, including 60 who are physically frail and 26 with dementia and other mental health issues.
Staff predict 29 people will need social services for the first time if the centre closes, and 16 would have to be assessed for residential care.
Rosie Ruse, 91, who has lived in Cromer Street for 64 years, uses a walking frame but attends the centre four days a week. She said: “If they close this place we’re all going to go home and die. This place is our life and without it I guarantee we’d all just give up.”
Eighty-year-old Beryl Joseph started attending the centre seven years ago following an operation on her legs. She said: “When I first came I couldn’t stand up for five minutes. Now I move about like a spring chicken.”
Another centre regular, Janet Woodward, of Judd Street, said: “Most of us are to be prisoners in our own home, seeing and doing nothing. This centre is our link to the outside world.”
At Hillwood, open for 40 years, centre manager Adam Woolmer said it would be impossible to close in March without causing severe distress to members.
“What we’re so angry about is the way this is being done,” he said. “If you must make cuts they need to be done in a dignified way.”
A council spokeswoman said cuts in central government spending, leaving the borough with a budget gap of between £80million and £100million over the next three years, meant difficult decisions had to be made.
The council would help Age Concern Camden adapt to the new financial challenges, including access to other sources of funding. A formal consultation on adult social care proposals will run from January 10 to March 21.