Council u-turn on plans to close disability day centre

Day centre campaigners are celebrating as ERC backtracks on closure proposal

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The decision to close one of two day centres for East Renfrewshire’s most vulnerable has been overturned amid protest from service users, their families and staff.

East Renfrewshire Council has announced a backtrack on the controversial plan to close either Thornliebank or Barrhead resource centres — part of the authority’s £20 million, three-year budget savings proposal.

A council spokeswoman confirmed that the Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) would be seeking the £90,000 saving from closing one of the centres elsewhere.

She said: “The move could see the day centre buildings being used as ‘hubs’ for service users, and also open for wider community use.

“It means day services for people with additional support needs will work more closely with third sector partners to realise a greater quality of life, and offer service users choices which reflect their aspirations.

“The council still has to identify a £90k saving by March 2016, and will work together with service users, their families and third sector partners to achieve this.”

A representative of the Friends group welcomed ERC’s change of direction. She told The Extra: “We have given the council lots of ideas, and we are more than willing to work with them on what can be done in the future.

“It’s a huge u-turn and such an uplift, since this troubling situation has been looming for over two years now.

“We want everyone involved in the centre to know the result, so it would be nice if the council could write to all and let them know what’s happening.”

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