Brighton & Hove Labour Council Attacks the Disabled By Closing Down Wellington House, The Last Day Centre for Adults with Learning Difficulties

Starmer Labour Has an Obsession With Attacking the Disabled – The First Thing They Did in Government Was to Attack Their Benefits

Save Wellington House campaign protests outside budget council - Brighton & Hove Local Democracy Reporting Service

In the last 20 years Brighton and Hove  Council has closed the Beaconsfield Villas Day Centre (2005), Cromwell Road Day Centre (2008), the Connaught Centre (2013/14), Buckingham Road Centre (2015) and the Belgrave Day Centre (2016).

The Petition Can Be Signed here

My son, Daniel, used to go to the Belgrave Centre in Portslade before that was closed. At the time we were reassured that there was space in the Wellingon House Centre. Now they are closing that too and hope to farm it out to the voluntary sector, a mishmash of different facilities, all of which are overstretched. This is privatisation by another name.

All the Labour councillors were handpicked and vetted, according to Greg Hadfield by Ivor Caplin, the former Hove MP and Chair of the Jewish Labour Movement who was caught in a sting by paedophile busters. Because of who he is he still has not been charged nor is he even on bail. Starmer, with his turning of a blind eye to Peter Mandelson and his ennoblement of Lord Doyle, despite having canvassed for a paedophile Sean Morton, who was facing charges at the time.

The ideology that says that disabled people are surplus to requirements and dispensable did not begin with Brighton and Hove Council.

From 1909 until 1979, California forcibly sterilised more than 20,000 women, third of the total in the United States. In Mein Kampf Hitler wrote that

What I wrote in my Argus Opinion in 2016 when the Belgrave Centre was closed is still relevant. We had a Tory Govt. then & a Labour one now - but in essence there's no difference

There is today one state, in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception [of citizenship] are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the United States.

Hitler Attacked What He Called ‘Useless Eaters’ and ‘Life Unworthy of Life’ and thus began the policies that ended with the so-called Euthanasia program, which many consider the beginning of the holocaust.

I’m not saying that Brighton and Hove Council or even Starmer’s Labour are going down that road but the singling out of disability benefits and services for the disabled reflects the same mindset. That is why mental health has always been the cindarella of the NHS.

Councillor Mitchie is driving through the closure of Wellington House under the guise of improving the service - she hasn't yet bothered to actually visit it

Cllr. Mitchie Alexander is the cabinet member responsible for Adult Social Care. She is quoted in the local Argus as saying that

It is not just about making a saving. It is an opportunity to assess what provision people with learning disabilities and their families would like to see offered in the future.”

Which is the kind of mindless word salad that you expect from Starmer Labour. It’s like saying, as Jonathan Turner of UK Lawyers for Israel did, that Israel’s starvation of people in Gaza that was an opportunity to tackle their obesity!

There is though no pretending that the intended closure of Wellington House is driven by anything other than financial considerations, austerity and the cuts agenda. Jacob Taylor, the Deputy Leader of the Council was quoted as saying that if the day centre remained open, the council would have to find the savings elsewhere in the adult social care budget.

10 years ago we were fighting the same fight - to save another centre - now Brighton's 'Labour' Council is intent on further 'savings'

 At a committee meeting on Thursday, February 19, the Brighton and Hove Parent Carers’ Council’s (PaCC) Fiona England said the day centre had capacity for at least 24 people and that the proposed closure would affect 21 adults, mostly in their forties, fifties and sixties.

According to Ms England 17 eligible young people are due to leave full-time education in the summer and their transition from children’s services to adult social care was already a source of concern. Closure of the day centre would add to that concern.

Ms England also raised concerns that other service providers lacked the capacity to absorb and meet the need of those currently cared for at Wellington House.

However the Labour Group is, at the moment, determined to plough ahead with their plans unless they are stopped.

There is a statutory consultation due to take place with carers and those affected from April onwards for 12 months but these ‘consultations’ are more a case of going through the motions than a genuine exercise in seeing whether the closure of Wellington House should go ahead.

We know this because Steve Hook spoke to staff at Wellington House informing them of the closure last week and got by all accounts a frosty reception. Likewise Cameron Brown, Head of the Specialist Disability Service wrote a letter on 27 January informing carers of the outcome of the Council meeting that took the decision to close Wellington House on 26 February (!)

Although he announced the formal consultation process and statutory review of the needs of those using the Wellington Centre it is clear that these processes are merely going through the motions before implementing the closure.

However we don’t accept the whole concept of the consultation process.  Firstly and most obviously because the decision will be taken by the Council Cabinet who can simply proceed to ignore the outcome of the consultation.

Secondly the Consultation will not be run by those who are neutral or disinterested. 

Thirdly consulting present users and their representatives ignores all those potential users in the years ahead who will have no input. Even if the Council were to ensure that no one presently using the Centre was disadvantaged, the effect of any closure would be to remove the possibility of anyone in the future gaining access to Wellington House’s facilities or those provide in the alternative.

At Wellington House users can access a whole range of facilities and expertise which would be lost in a private sector provider. The privater/charitable sector has no legal obligations unlike the Council.

What is clear though is that this ‘Labour’ Government under Starmer is determined to cut back local authority financing as it expands the ‘defence’ i.e. war budget.  Bombs and missiles to Israel and Ukraine are a higher priority than basic local services.

However parents and carers aren’t taking this lying down and a campaign is being launched to prevent the closure of Brighton and Hove’s last day Centre. We lobbied the Council Budget meeting on 26 February and the first meeting of parents and carers was held earlier this week and a Petition has also been launched.

If you are living in Brighton and Hove then please sign it here.

In the coming weeks then there will be further activity.

Tony Greenstein

Many thanks to Sarah Booker-Lewis, Local democracy reporter  whose reporting I have plundered!

 

See Closure of Wellington House, Brighton, would be 'devastating'

Councillors make promise over plans to close Brighton day centre