Disabled children’s care home to close
DECISION COMES AS COUNCIL SAYS IT SPENDS £300,000 A YEAR ON UNUSED BEDS
SALFORD’S only home for disabled children is to close after the council decided it no longer made financial sense to keep it going.
Town hall bosses have decided to shut the half-empty Grange, in Peel Green arguing it is spending £300,000 a year on unused beds.
The home has only two residents and the council says it has been unable to persuade other authorities to place children there.
But the mum of one of its residents said council chiefs had put money before people.
Rebecca Howarth, whose daughter Rachel has a place at the Grange, said: “We are massively disappointed but not wholly surprised. We’re still disappointed it’s got to this stage and we weren’t able to make them see sense.
“It does seem to have been based on monetary terms and that’s what gets you right in the guts - the bottom line is more importance than the human effects.”
Campaigners began fighting plans for the Grange in 2011, when then-mayor Ian Stewart moved some of its residents to different accommodation.
The number of children in the home has dwindled to just two out of a possible five.
Coun Lisa Stone, lead member for children’s services, said the council would be ‘failing its duty’ to the city’s youngsters to carry on spending £300,000 a year on empty beds.
She added: “We are not proposing to spend any less money on the care of the two current residents. I understand the Grange is well regarded by the families of the children and it is an emotive situation, but it will not close until alternatives have been found.
“By closing the home, redeploying staff and working with the families of the residents to find suitable alternatives, we can save the £300,000 a year we are spending on empty beds. We’ve explored all options to fill the home or make the savings but there is simply no demand for this kind of care from other parents within the city or from other local authorities.
“The money to run the home is the equivalent of the cost of 10 family support workers working with 20 families a week or almost the cost of running a fully-staffed children’s centre for a year.”
The council said it would find ‘suitable’ alternative accommodation for the children before closing the home.
Ms Howarth said: “It’s by no means over and we’re not sitting back and accepting it.”