More meetings as the fight to save Brookdale continues

February 2015 update

Our Friends of Brookdale (FOB) campaign group has recently met with various councillors regarding the disgraceful and unacceptable threat of Sefton Council to close Ainsdale’s Brookdale Resource Centre.

‘FOB’ met Labour Cllrs Paul Cummins and Liz Savage on Tuesday 10 February 2014.

Paul Cummins is the Cabinet Member responsible for the current consultation on Brookdale. Liz Savage expressed additional views on Brookdale on this following link: http://www.southportlabour.org.uk/brookdale_resource_centre

The argument in favour of retaining the Brookdale is overwhelming and very compelling. Support for our campaign has astonished everyone in its magnitude and exhibited the great public feeling against any ridiculous and ill-considered council plans to close the facility. We presented these sincere views passionately yet logically to councillors. Our opinions are based on Brookdale being much needed, highly respected and the ‘only’ specialist dementia/Alzheimer’s centre in the region.

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Friends of Brookdale had also met with Ainsdale’s Libdem Cllr Haydn Preece on 6 February 2014. Cllr Preece is supportive and wholly opposed to closure!

Why is Ainsdale’s Brookdale Centre so important?

It is a fundamental service for elderly people with Dementia/Alzheimer’s and must stay open. This centre is ideally situated in Ainsdale, Southport. It is the only Dementia specialist care centre in a catchment area of approximately 150,000 people. The council proposes to close it and move everybody across to other centre miles away. This unit with specialist trained staff provides a brilliant day care service for older people with Alzheimer’s and Dementia and deals with cases from early onset to the later stages of the illness. It provides a critical life-line for carers giving them the required respite whilst being assured of the safety, health and well-being of their loved ones at the centre.

The centre is geographically perfectly placed in the middle of the areas it serves.

Questionable council spin!

Any abrupt council claims that the centre has seen low attendance figures are highly misleading. We have recently discovered that many specialist dementia/Alzheimer’s groups/individuals in the region have never even ‘heard’ of the Brookdale. So naturally people cannot attend a centre that they are unaware of! Council spin must be seriously challenged in this instance as it just fails to cut the mustard!

Please sign our ongoing petition:

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/save-the-brookdale-in-ainsdale

See also, ‘WW2 Hero ‘dismissed’ by thoughtless Sefton Council closure plans at Brookdale Centre’

http://pat-regan.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/ww2-hero-dismissed-by-thoughtless.html

Friends of Brookdale on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/brookdaledaycentre

Widespread media coverage for our campaign

OTS News

International coverage

http://ufodigest.com/?q=article/brookdale-0208

The Champion newspaper also mentioned the Brookdale fight.

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