DEAF and disabled people are preparing to camp outside City Hall on the day their centre closes in protest at having “nowhere else to go”.

The Centre for Independent Living, Paddington, used by about 200 vulnerable people, is to close at the end of September and services will begin “winding down” next month

Margaret O’Halloran, who lives alone and is partially paralysed, said of the centre: “We are like one big happy family. It is my life.”

Daniel Astaire, Westminster’s cabinet member for adult services and health, said exiled users would be able to use “personal budgets”, money allocated from the council, to buy care from other services.

But Tracey Bennett, a former youth worker from Maida Vale, who lost the use of her legs after breaking her back in a work accident, said: “The council says you can take your budget and use it to go somewhere else. But there is nowhere else. You have to pay for a carer in order to get you there, whereas here the care is provided. It’s being set up to fail.”

Hundreds of people attend the centre which, as well as offering classes and activities, has a tranquil garden and hydrotherapy pool, the only one of its kind in London not attached to a hospital.

The centre, which opened 15 years ago as a “place of respite” for people with long-term health problems and to ease the burden on the NHS, is run by charity Training for Life, whose contract with the city council comes to an end next month. 

Staff say the hydrotherapy pool that has helped hundreds of physically disabled people will be left to rot. Julia Douglas, a freelance hydrotherapist in charge of maintaining the pool, warned that without regular cleaning bacteria would “grow like mad”. She has been told her work at the centre will end in September. The council said it was “considering options” about the pool.

Maria Davis, from Gloucester Terrace, who is leading the campaign against closure, said: “We are considering hiring a mini-bus to go to City Hall the day it closes so we can ask ‘Where should we go’?”

At full council on Wednesday, Cllr Michael Brahms asked Cllr Astaire about the future of the centre, in Westbourne Park Road.

Cllr Astaire said the council would “talk to the users about personal budgets” and encourage them to access “universal services through things like Westminster Adult Education Service.”

A consultation on the future of use of the centre building closes later this year, and Cllr Astaire said one option was converting it for use by dementia patients.

Cllr Brahms said: “It seems quite a few of the therapies, speech therapies and other therapies that are being done at the moment which people need badly could also benefit those suffering from dementia, so I would hope that if we do go down the route we can keep on quite a number of the services provided at the moment.”

The council said it had commissioned Hammersmith and Fulham Action on Disability to work with centre users to plan alternatives.

Published: 22 July 2011
by JOSH LOEB