Residents devasted by Holehird house closure

7:42am Friday 24th October 2003

RESIDENTS at the Leonard Cheshire Holehird house in Windermere say they are devastated by the news that the home is to shut.

The 25 residents are urging people to support them and say they are determined not to let Holehird close without a fight.

The well-known charity is to quit the house in 2006 or 2007 after more than four decades of providing a care home for disabled people.

The charity said that it could not afford to upgrade both Holehird and its care home Oaklands, in Garstang, Lancashire, in order to conform to the new Care Standards Act. A new home for 20 residents would be built instead in the Lancaster or Morecambe Bay area.

Resident Carole Pouton, who has lived at Holehird for more than 40 years, said: “We were devastated to be quite honest. We were reassured up until a month ago that the home would not close and suddenly last week they came and told us it was closing.

“Holehird has been part of the local community for well over 42 years now. We have a lot of volunteers who are a loyal band and I think everybody around us is horrified as well.” Miss Pouton said that they were not given details of what would happen to the residents who could not be accommodated in the new home.

She said they needed as much publicity as possible, and urged supporters to contact chairman of Leonard Cheshire Charles Morland, Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Collins, or Liberal Democrat prospective parliamentary candidate for Westmorland and Lonsdale Tim Farron.

“At the moment we are just recuperating and deciding what we are going to do but we intend to do something and not just let it come about.” The gardens and views at Holehird are so lovely that Leonard Cheshire, who founded what is now the UK’s largest disability care charity, is said to have stood in the grounds and said: “I’ll take it”.

The charity’s North West regional director John Winkler said a second factor behind the decision was that Cumbria and Lancashire County Councils, which purchase services from Leonard Cheshire, had policies to reduce the number of residential beds and to provide a new range of services in the community.

In order to respond to the changes, Mr Winkler said that Leonard Cheshire hoped to purpose-build a £3 million care home to serve the needs of south Cumbria and north Lancashire. It would accommodate 20 residents and provide ten respite care beds, and would replace Holehird and Oaklands.

Mr Winkler said: “Unfortunately we are not in a position to develop both services on the current sites.” Mr Winkler said that the local authorities hoped to provide alternative services to help people live on their own in the community with support, or in small groups, and it was possible Leonard Cheshire could be involved in supplying some of those services.

There are approximately 50 staff at Holehird, and Mr Winkler said he hoped they could be employed in the new Leonard Cheshire home or in the new community services.

Tim Collins MP has written to Prime Minister Tony Blair urging him to repeal the “most pernicious” elements of the care homes regulations.

He said: “The effect of the Government’s care homes regulation policy has been to destroy thriving, loving care homes like Holehird.” Tim Farron is taking up the case with Leonard Cheshire and is urging local people to write to the organisation.

The building is owned by the Holehird Trust. A spokesperson for Cumbria County Council, which manages the trust, said it was too early to comment on the building’s future.

l The chairman of Leonard Cheshire, Charles Morland, can be contacted at 30 Millbank, London SW1P 4QD.